
II 



RHmpHbP 



I LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

<meM '1:23 







| UNITED STATES OP AMERICA. | 




" Farewell, a Ion? farewell, to all my greatness ! 
This is the state of man : To-day he puts forth 
The tender leaves of hope, to-morrow Ulo soms, 
And hears hi-; blushing honors tlrck upon him : 
The third day c mes a frost, a killiug frost ; 
And, — when he thinks, good ca «y man, full surelv 
His greatness is a ripening, — nips his root, 
And then he falls, as I do. I have ventured. 
Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders. 
This many summers in a sea of glory : 
By far beyond my depth : my high blown pride 
At length broke under me ;"and now has left me, 



Weary, and old with service, to the mercy 
Of a rude stream, that mu>t fovever hide me. 
Vain pomp, and glory of this world, I hate ye ; 
T feel my heart new opened : O, how wretched 
Is that poor man, that hangs on princes' favors ! 
There is, betwixt that smile we would aspire to. 
That sweet aspect of princes, and their ruin. 
More pangs and fears than wars or women have • 
And when he falls, he falls like Lucifer, 
Never to hope again." 

King Henry Till., Act iii. Scene 2. 



P OPE K Y 



THE 



FOE OF THE CHURCH, 



AND OF THE S 



REPUBLIC. 



■j-teiji 






JOSEPH S. VAN DYKE, A.M. 



PEOPLES PUBLISHING CO. 

PHILADELPHIA, Pa.; CINCINNATI, 0.; CHICAGO, III. j ST. LOUIS, Mo. 

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. 

1871. 




s+ 



<&■ 



*N 



* 



6 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, by 

JOSEPH S. VAN DYKE, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 



PHILADELPHIA : 

ELECTROTYPED AND PRINTED BY 

S. A. GEORGE &. CO. 




PREFACE. 



t 
HE deep interest awakened in the hearts of many 

by the present condition and reawakened ener- 
gies of the Papal Church, is our apology for 
presuming to call the attention of the public to 
Popery's inveterate hostility to civil and religious lib- 
erty. And this, most assuredly, is a subject which, 
though lacking novelty, imperatively demands earnest, 
serious, thoughtful consideration. In this age of maud- 
lin charity for all systems of faith — instead of genuine 
charity for all men — the Church greatly needs a fear- 
less reassertion of the principles and doctrines essential 
to the hope of salvation. Souls struggling with sin 
need to know that Christ, our elder brother, ever acces- 
sible, is a mighty Saviour, and that all the ransomed 
are " kings and priests unto God." 

If the aspirations of Eomanism were restricted to 
increased spiritual power, our duty would terminate 
with proclaiming a free, untrammelled Gospel, hope 

for every penitent at the foot of Calvary. But Rome 

3 



4 PRE FA CE. 

has never yielded her right to temporal rule. The 
unparalleled efforts now made to extend her influence 
are instigated by the hope of securing control in the 
political world. "We need, therefore, a. reaffirmation 
of the lesson written in the struggles of thirteen cen- 
turies, that Eomanism is the ally of despotism, Pro- 
testantism the friend of constitutional liberty. 

This volume, presented to the public with a deep 
consciousness that it falls far short of meeting the 
demand of the times, is a feeble effort to prove that 
Romanism in this nineteenth century is essentially the 
same that it has always been, the foe of the true 
Church and of Republicanism, the determined enemy 
of liberty, civil and ecclesiastical, personal and national. 
Prepared in the disconnected hours of ministerial life, 
we crave for it the reader's generous criticism. Firmly 
convinced, however, that the subject is one claiming 
earnest attention, we timidly launch our tiny bark 
in the feeble hope that it may, in some slight mea- 
sure at least, awaken attention to the danger to be 
apprehended from a system of despotism, which for 
fifteen centuries has fettered the limbs of freedom and 

darkened the way of salvation. 

The Author. 
Ceanbury, N. J., 

Sept. 1, 1871. 



CONTENTS. 



INTRODUCTORY. 

PAGE 

No just cause of alarm — Call for exertion — Hostility to Republicanism — Present 
activity — Growth in the United States — Relative gain — Control of irreligious 
masses — Summary of Evangelism — Converts to Romanism — Unity of pur- 
pose — Efforts in the West — Power shrewdly exerted — Choice locations — De- 
signs — Efforts in the South, among the Ereedmen — Measures adopted at 
Baltimore — Reference to Pope — Contribution from Rome — Landing of priests 
— Establishment of schools — Popery's displays captivate the ignorant — South 
a second Ireland — Efforts in the East; in large cities — Effectiveness of their 
agencies — Their schools teach Catholicism — Seeking ascendency — Advantages 
over Protestants; one will, designs masked, unscrupulous — Their boast — 
Assertions of bishops and papers — What has been may be — Testimony of 
Desraeli — The struggle inevitable 11 

:p.a.:r,t I. 

POPERY THE PREDICTED ENEMY OF CHRIST^ KINGDOM. 

CHAPTER I, 

THE ROMAN POWER FORETOLD. 

Popery's seemingly charmed life — Claims divine origin — Outgrowth of depraved 
nature — Prophecies panoramic ; the picture incomplete but accurate — Diffi- 
culties of interpretation — Prominence of Romanism — Nebuchadnezzar's dream 
— Two objects ; despotism and Christianity — The four kingdoms — Form of 
government of the last — Unnatural union of despotism and Republicanism — 
Daniel's interpretation — Rome's conquests — Her policy in later times — Never 
firmly consolidated — The empire divided — Kept asunder — Christ's kingdom as 
Rome's foe — Two states foretold — Time of rise — Predicted foe of Republican- 
ism — The struggle through centuries — Some of the kingdoms still lending 
power to Rome — The Christian's hope 21 

N CHAPTER II. 

THE PAPACY PREDICTED AS THE FOE OF THE TRUE CHURCH. 

Rome's ecclesiastical power foretold — Nebuchadnezzar's dream and Daniel's 
vision — Origin of the four beasts — Character of each symbolized — The angel's 
interpretation — Roman power diverse — Its extended dominion — Its policy — 
Rise of the papacy — The Little Horn — Date of rise — Three kingdoms plucked 
up — Unlimited authority predicted — Origin of supremacy — Arrogance foretold 
— Claiming the keys — Opens heaven, thrusts into hell, retains in purgatory, 
forgives sin — Assertion of London Vatican ; Pope reigns in both worlds — 
Rebels to the Pope are rebels against Cod — Infallibility dogma — Warring 
against the saints — Rome's slaughters — Changing times — Continuance of tem- 
poral power — Last act in the drama — Continuance of spiritual power — Her 
claim to be the true Church and the friend of Republicanism GO 

5 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER III. 

FORMALISM AN OLD ENEMY OP CHRISTIANITY. 

Papal claim to antiquity — A hackneyed quotation — Lord Maeaulay's testimony 
— Protestantism as old as the Bible — Popery a novelty — Primacy of Peter a 
recent dogma — Supremacy of the Pope resisted, by councils, by fathers, by 
popes — Invocation of the dead a recent dogma — Masses not established till 9tn 
century; purgatory not till 1430; celibacy not till 11th century; transub- 
stantiation not till 13th — The latter denounced, by fathers, by Lateran Council 
— Insufficiency of the Bible — Adoration of relics — Withholding cup from laity 
— Immaculate conception still more recent — Infallibility the last dogma — Love 
of form ancient — Prevalent among Pagans and Jews — Judaism only ritualism 
— Supposed destruction of spirituality — Phariseeism denounced by Christ — 
Its early manifestation in the Church — Denounced by Apostles — Its growth; 
when complete Antichrist — Romanism is perfected ritualism, the foe of spiri- 
tuality and Republicanism 46 

CHAPTER IV. 

ROMANISM AN APOSTASY. 

Paul's predictions — The "Man of Sin" exalts himself; coming with "lying 
wonders " — " Strong delusion " — Continuance till Second Advent — Popery the 
predicted apostasy — If Romanism is not Antichrist, Protestantism must be — 
Which did Apostles teach? — In first three centuries Christianity pure — No 
unmeaning rites — Early persecutions — Christianity under popular ban — Purity 
a result — Rome's ceremonies unknown — No universal bishopric — Testimony 
of Clemens — Popery's assumptions unheared of — Conversion of Constantine 
— Effect upon Christian religion — Rapid growth of ceremonies — Boniface III. 
" universal bishop " — The title not assumed without strenuous opposition — 
Protest of Ireneus; of Maurus — Councils resist — Testimony of St. Ibar; of 
Theodoret — Two rival popes — Gregory's protest — Infallibility condemns 
supremacy — Lewis owned no supremacy — False decretals — Constan tine's gift; 
a base fabrication — Nicholas I. assumes supremacy — Government of the 
Church entirely changed — Testimony of Mosheim; of Bellarmine. Extracts 
from Janus — Infallibility declares submission essential to salvation — Assertion 
of Boniface VIII. ; of recent Vatican Council — See of St. Peter free from 
error — Opposers of infallibility and supremacy anathematized 57 

CHAPTER V. 

POPERY, PAGANISM. 

Boniface merely sanctioned existing rites — The motive for introducing heathen 
forms — Testimony of Gregory — The policy disastrous — Method of manufactur- 
ing dogmas — Pagan rites when imported — Idolaters made Christians — Same 
ceremonies — Fish listening to preaching — Festival of St. Anthony — A comic 
scene — The custom borrowed— Catholic legend — Holy water, its spiritual and 
corporeal usefulness — Use of incense — Original test of faith in Christ — Kneel- 
ing before idols — Specimens of prayers to Mary — Images in rows — Priests in 
robes — Boy in white — Burning candles — Feast of lights — Purgatory stolen — 
Homer's testimony — Invocation of the dead — Sample of prayers — Cincinnati's 
new saint — Worshipping bones — Beneath St. Peter's — Temple of Romulus — 
The Pantheon — Same festivals — Heathen feast-days too few — Prostration 
before images — Testimony of a traveller — Statue of St. Peter — Ridiculous 
mistakes ; a canonized heathen, sainted mountain, sainted cloak — Prayer to 
St. Handkerchief— Patron saints — Advice to children — Processions; festival 
of the Annunciation — Title of Supreme Pontiff— Votive offerings — Scene in 
Paris — Sacrifice of the mass — Priest handling wafer — Infants — Absurdities — 
Asceticism — Self-whippers — Seneca's testimony — Edict of Commodius — Kiss- 
ing the Pope's toe — Suing for forgiveness — Testimony of Dean Waddington; 
of Aringhus; of Dr. Middleton— Affinity to Buddhism— Two infallibles— 
Same rites — Similar defences fl 



CONTENTS. 7 

PART II- 

POPEEY ESSENTIALLY HOSTILE TO CHRISTIANITY. 

CHAPTER I. 

ARROGANCE. 

PAGE 

Unrivalled assumption — Claim of Fagnani; of Innocent III. ; of Bellarmine — 
Extract from L' Waivers — Contradictions — Inerrancy erring — Infallibility 
ignorant of geography — Le Pere Lacordaire on immutability — Claim of ex- 
clusive right to interpret Scripture — Obedience the people's only right — Even 
God must speak through the Pope — Publication of Bible anathematized — 
American Bible Society denounced — Letter of Pius VII. — No version without 
notes — Bible-reading condemned — Indulgence purchasable — Defended by logic 
-Opposition to popular education ; to freedom of the press — Bull of 1832 — 
Rome's golden age — Priestly forgiveness — Anathema against opposers — 
Treasury of good works — Every sin its price — Without money no forgiveness 
— Use of rosary — Continuance in purgatory dependent on liberality — Creation 
of the world's Creator — Latest assumption — Catholics must yield obedience... 101 

CHAPTER II. 

INFALLIBILITY. 

Pio Nono declares himself infallible — Response of the faithful — The encyclical 
and syllabus of '64 — Protest against the civilization of the age — Anathema 
against the friends of progress — Suppression of free speech — Protests contemned 
— Opposition of German Prelates — Assertion of Cardinal Schwarzenberg — Re- 
cantation of the Syrian Patriarch — Threat of deposition — The manifesto of 
French bishops — Argument from antiquity; from silence; of Dr. Newman; 
from Scripture; of Bishop of Poitiers — Believe or be eternally lost — The 
contest ended — Refutation unnecessary, done by Catholics — Feeble attempts 
to answer Janus — How shall we know what Infallibility teaches — Infallible 
transmission — A cart-load of contradictions — Infallibility useless — An infalli- 
ble infallibly pronounced a heretic — Earth's revolution condemned — The 
dogma of political engine; an object of horror; of sadness ; of ridicule — 
Popery becoming more bigoted — Results of the dogma — The wail of despair 
— Extract from The Tablet — Call for a new crusade — Sympathy for Pio Nono.. 118 

CHAPTER III. 

DESPOTISM. 

Popery's assumptions equal those of Brahmanism — Her seven sacraments instru- 
ments of tyranny — Doctrine of intention as affecting sacrifice of mass, bap- 
tism, extreme unction, marriage — Chance for an adventurer — Without inten- 
tion no marriage — Confessional an engine of despotism — Catholics disqualified 
for American citizenship — Pope's claim of right to damn the soul — Bull 
against Henry VIII. ; and Queen Elizabeth — Letter from heaven to king 
Pepin — Pope becomes temporal sovereign — Pope's denunciation of liberty — 
Extracts from Pio Nono's letters — Voluntary obedience impossible — Pope 
supreme in Council ; all power emanates from him — Washing pilgrims' feet — 
The Senegambian negro 137 

CHAPTER IV. 

FRAUD : — RELICS. 

Singular objects of veneration — Four heads of John Baptist — Eight arms of 
St. Matthew— Three of St. Luke— Two heads of St. Paul— Two of St. Peter— 
The tail of Balaam's ass— Oil from the bones of St. Elizabeth — Five legs of an 
ass — Pieces of the cross — Table at which Christ supped — Upper chamber — 
Manna of the wilderness — Blossoms of Aaron's rod — Moses' ark — The dice 



8 CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

used in casting lots for Christ's vesture — A piece of the Virgin's petticoat — St. 
Anthony's toe-nails — A vial of St. Joseph's breath — A little cheese made from 
Mary's milk — Twelve combs " as good as new " — Rays of a star — The beard 
of Noah — A step of Jacob's ladder — Adoration of statues and images — Prayers 
•aid to them . 149 

CHAPTER V. 

FRAUD : — MIRACLES. 

Her claim of power to work miracles defended in recent publications — Specimens 
— Broken back made whole — Sailing on a millstone — Resisting the devil — A 
dead saint works miracles — Conflicting testimony — Headless woman restored — 
The enraged image — Liquefaction of St. Januarius' blood — Recent wonders — 
The wafer-infants — A dying man instantaneously made well — The infant's 
penance — Prayers in letters of gold — Two hundred in " Glories of Mary " — 
The suicide — Alexandra's head makes confession — The wooden nun — The 
fountain of Lourdes — Bernadette's vision — Huge fabrication 155 

CHAPTER VI. 

IDOLATRY. 

Testimony of Origen ; of Gibbon — Cunningly introduced — Condemned by Coun- 
cil; by Pope — Controversy between Leo and Gregory II. — Tragical death of 
Leo IV. — Bloody Irene — Image worship established — Decree of Council of * 
Nice— Defence of monstrous wickedness — Road-side images — "Virgin of 
Pillar" — The crucifix of St. Salvador — Letter of Gregory to Constantina — 
Filings from Paul's chains — Distinction between absolute and relative worship 
— Serenading the Virgin — Kissing stones — The papist's apology — The Virgin's 
titles — Mary's cooperation in redemption — The only fountain of hope — Ap- 
pearance to St. Bridget — All mercy through Mary — The door of heaven — 
Dispenser of all grace — Omnipotent — God under obligations — Commands 
Deity — Specimen prayers from the "Glories of Mary;" from Catholic 
Manual — With the instructed, semi-political papers powerless — Corrected 
Psalms — The Prisoner-Pope imploring Mary's intercession 171 

CHAPTER VII. 

WILL - WORSHIP. 

Abstinence from meat characteristic of popery — Meat eaten on Friday eternally 
damns — Pope grants indulgence — Penance condemned by Paul — Self-torture — 
St. Simeon — Forbidding to marry characteristic of popery — Marriage more 
sinful than concubinage — Celibacy disastrous to morals — Testimony from 
Gavin; from confessions of priests ; from St. Liguori — Extracts from "Master 
Key to Popery" — Licentiousness 189 

CHAPTER VIII. 

CREDULITY. 

Strong delusion — Popery worse than Paganism — Priest in the place of Christ — 
Disgusting exhibitions — A delusion or a falsehood — Purgatory a gross swindle 
— All papists enter purgatory — Supererogation — Insurance policies against 
hell-fire — Papal succession — The Apostolic office abrogated — No vestige of 
papal authority — The paramours of abandoned women in the papal chair — 
Two infallible pontiff's — Three infallibles, all perjured — Rejection of the fun- 
damental doctrines of salvation — Use of incense — Form of priestly tonsure — 
Frauds to induce belief in miracles — Falsehood justified — Appeals to ignorance 
— Immutability — Bossuet's testimony — Pathetic appeal to antiquity ; its 
absurdity — Crimes of Pope John XII. ; of John XXII. ; of Alexander VI. ; 
of Julius II. ; of Leo X. ; of Paul III. ; of Julius III.— Testimony of Gene- 
brard; of Baronius — Crimes of Councils; of Constantinople; of Nice; of 



CONTENTS. 9 

PAGE 

Lyons ; of Constance — John Huss burned in violation of pledges — Wyckliffe's 
bones disinterred — Infallibility a delusion — Misquotation of Scripture by Pius 
IX. — Monks proved angels 195 



PART III. 

POPERY THE FOE OF LIBERTY. 

CHAPTER I. 

PERSECUTION. 

Tyrants' professions — The Gospel seized upon — Persecution adopted — Heretics 
denied the right of inheritance — Decree of the Council of Constance — The 
Inquisition — Persecution a dogma — Defended by theologians and emperors — 
Declared reasonable — Popes defend it — Bull of Urban II. — Plenary Indulgence 
— Councils enjoin extermination — Bishop's oath to persecute — Kings forced 
to destroy heretics — Scriptural prophecy — An engine of terror — Trivial pre- 
texts for arrest — Mode of arrest — Heartlessness — Confession or torture — 
Methods of cruelty — Auto-da-fe— Holy wars — Preaching a crusade — Papal 
apology — Slaughter of Albigenses; of Waldenses — Whipping Count Raimond 
— Cruelty in Beziers ; in Menerbe; in valleys of Loyse and Frassiniere; in 
Calabria; in Ireland — St. Bartholomew's day — Charles IX. rejoicing — The 
scarlet robe put on — Te Deutn in Rome — Attempt at, white- washing 215 

CHAPTER II. 

POPERY THE ENEMY OP CIVIL LIBERTY. 

Opposed to every safeguard of freedom — Same in the United States as formerly 
in Europe — The enemy of Public School system — Charge of sectarianism — 
Hostility to the Bible — Their own version uncirculated — Call for expulsion — 
Council in Baltimore — The School Fund — Pits of destruction — One policy in 
Austria, another in U. S. — Unfounded assertions — Fatal results — Not content 
with expulsion of Bible — Divine right of education — No ground of complaint 
— Yield all or resist — •Defence in Constitution — Liberty used to overturn liberty 
— Legislative assistance — India-rubber consciences — School Bill — Their schools 
sectarian — School books — Allegiance to Pius IX. — Pope's jurisdiction in U.S. 
— Protest against civilization — Denial of Jesuits — Father Hecker's address — 
Mistimed assertion — Priests above law — Murderer shielded — Catholics in recent 
war — Visit to Pope — Recognition of southern Government — Benediction to 
Davis — Assassination of Lincoln — Papal admission — Vote as directed from 
Rome — Popery established, by ballot— Orange riots — Political cowardice — 
Spirit of Catholic press — Singular devotion — Wail of despair — Protests — 
Americans oppose Italian unity — Call for crusade — Catholics in Zouave dress 
— Raising funds — Raffle for Pope's snuff-box — No cause of alarm — Catholics 
despairing — Church and State 231 

CHAPTER III. 

THE PAPACY A FOE TO RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. 

Right of private judgment condemned — Bible reading condemned — Decision of 
the Trent Council — No society for distributing Bibles — Recent Bible-burning — 
Liguori's regret — Freedom of conscience — Declaration of Pope; of bishop; 
of New York Tablet — Persecution in 1870 — Opposition to freedom of press — 
Sign of weakness — Education of the masses— ^Comparison of papal lands with 
Protestant — Claim of the Catholic World — Strange idea of liberty — Civil 
liberty without religious impossible — Testimony of Gattini; of Father Hya- 
cinthe 265 



10 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER IV. 

POPERY AND MORALITY. 

PAGE 

Though many papists are rigid moralists the system immoral — Comparison of 
papal lands with Protestant — The immoral masses in Chicago ; in London; in 
Rome — Entertainment in the Vatican — Estimate of priests in Rome — Morality 
scarcely expected — Profanity — Specimen of Pope's cursing — Anathema against 
all Non-Catholics; against readers of condemned books; against members of 
secret societies ; against opposers of the Church — Four-fifths of human race 
under anathema — Character of Jesuits — Testimony of Macaulay — Immorali- 
ties a result of teaching — Influence of the confessional — Rules for confessors — 
Theft justified — Every sin lawful — Infallibility condemns speculative beliefs 
and sanctions impurities — Dispensing with Oaths — Conduct, correspondent — 
Infidelity and atheism fruit of popery — Testimony of Coleridge 274 

CHAPTER V. 

POPERY UNCHANGED. 

Greatness departed — Methods changed ; spirit the same — No dogma revoked — 
No superstition abandoned — Growling and waiting — No less eager for power — 
No less avaricious — No less intolerant — Threats of coming vengeance — Rome's 
worst acts defended in U. S. — Protestantism an intruder — Unrivalled audacity 
— Extracts from Catholic papers — Unexpected candor — Text-books — Ana- 
thema of Pius IX. against those who deny his right to persecute — The stolen 
child — Buried in a monastery — Persecutions in Switzerland — Imprisonment 
of a physician — Sentence of death against a convert — A suffering family — 
Convert in dungeon — American bishop in the power of the Inquisition — 
Protestant worship prohibited in Rome — Ingratitude — Papal Zouaves from 
America — Archbishop's address — Opposition to Italian republic — Popery 
supreme over Republicanism — No vacillation in hating liberty — Continuance 
of popery — Overthrow gradual — Many complications — Labor and wait 288 




INTRODUCTORY. 

|ITH those who prophesy the speedy triumph of 
Romanism in this country we have little sym- 
pathy ; with those who counsel supreme indiffer- 
ence to her increased activity, less still. Whilst 
— as a comparison of statistics clearly proves — there is 
no just cause for alarm on the part of the friends of 
civil liberty, there are reasons many and cogent why 
Protestants should put forth their most strenuous efforts 
to defeat the wily machinations of their arch-enemy, 
and to give the masses the only true antidote to Popeiy, 
the simple, unadulterated Gospel. This call to re- 
doubled exertion is found not simply in the fact that 
the Papacy is by necessity bitterly hostile to the true 
Church and to Republicanism, but especially in its recent 
energy and growth. Earnest effort and unwearied 
vigilance are duties we owe alike to ourselves and to 
God. If activity is essential to healthful piety ; if the 
truth as taught by Christ is in its very nature aggres- 
sive ; if the true Church of God can fulfil its mission in 
the world only by conscientiously endeavoring to obey 
the commands of its ascended Lord ; if, as every well 
instructed Protestant firmly believes, Popery is the un- 
compromising enemy of genuine Christianity, and of 

11 



12 INTRODUCTORY. 

Republican forms of government, then most assuredly 
Protestants should exert themselves to counteract the 
unparalleled efforts now made to extend Rome's baneful 
system of spiritual despotism over a country dedicated 
to Protestantism and civil liberty. 

The subjoined figures show a remarkable growth of 
Romanism in the last thirty years. There were in the 
United States in * 

1840 1870 

Dioceses 13 53 

Vicariates-Apostolic 9 

Bishops 12 62 

Priests 373 3483 

Churches and Stations.. 300 5219 

Catholic Population.... 1,500,000 5,000,000 * 

This condensed view fails in giving an adequate idea 
of the full strength of the Papal Church in the United 
States. In several of the dioceses the numbers are not 
given. Moreover, in addition to their regular priests, 
they have about 2000 seculars, and nearly 1000 clerical 
students. To these cohorts of Rome must be added 
several thousand "religious" in 286 nunneries and 128 
monasteries. Imperfect as the figures are, however, 
they show a remarkable increase in the last three de- 
cades. Their dioceses have more than quadrupled; 
their bishops quintupled. Their churches are now 
seventeen times more numerous than in 1840 ; their 
priests nine times.*)* 

* See " Catholic Directory and Ordo." 

f At their present rate of increase — without supposing that num- 
bers shall give them greater efficiency, and correspondingly more rapid 



INTRODUCTORY. 



13 



It is indeed true that during the same period Protest- 
antism has greatly added to its numbers. * And if it 
had kept pace with its adversary, there would be little, 
if indeed any, ground for fear. But what are the facts? 
Is the Catholic increase only absolute, or is it an in- 
crease relative to Protestants ? In 1840, of the entire 
population, one-twelfth was Catholic; now about one- 
seventh is. And of the large number belonging to no 
creed, the Papal Church, which is to an alarming extent 
a political organization, can effectually control at least 
its proportion. It is the constant boast of their papers 
that if our nation is " Non-Catholic," it is certainly " Non- 
Protestant ;" that they are as numerous as the mem- 
bers of the dissevered branches of the "damnable 
heresy," and are therefore — even in point of numbers, 
to say nothing of divine right — entitled to control the 
future destinies of this country.* 

The number of their priests is indeed small when 

growth — they will have in 1900, Dioceses and Yicariates- Apostolic 
295 ; Bishops 320 ; Priests 32,497 ; Churches and Preaching Stations 
903,322 ; Catholic Population 16,666,666. 

* SUMMARY OF EVANGELICISM IN THE UNITED STATES I 

Denominations. 



Baptists (Regular and Free Will)... 

Congregationalists 

Episcopalians 

Lutherans 

Methodists (all branches) 

Presbyterians (all branches) 

Reformed (Dutch and German) 

Moravians 



Total. 



Churches. 


Clergymen. 


16,422 


9,948 


3,043 


3,168 


2,512 


2,762 


3,392 


1,926 


15,509 


25,021 


7,262 


6,833 


1,633 


1,019 


3,663 


1,647 
52,324 


53,436 



1,282,593 
300,362 
176,686 
388,538 

2,447,993 
687,373 
279,354 
108,122 



5,071,021 



14 INTRODUCTORY. 

compared with the number of Protestant ministers; 
they are sufficient, however, to manage the affairs of 
the Church with energy and zeal. And an alarming 
feature in their rapidly increasing number is that many 
— and among these the most intelligent, zealous, effi- 
cient and intolerant — are American born : Bronson, 
Doane, Hecker, and a long list of others, sons of Metho- 
dists, Episcopalians, Congregationalists, and Presbyte- 
rians. 

And all, from the highest to the lowest, archbishops, 
bishops, priests, Jesuits, monks and nuns, are assidu- 
ously engaged in advancing the interests of Rome. 
One will controls all. The entire country, from Maine 
to California, from Oregon to Florida, is comprised in 
the field of their operations. Divided into seven pro- 
vinces, embracing fifty-three dioceses and nine vicariates- 
apostolic, each under the watchful eye of a bishop, 
there is no section of this broad land but Rome claims 
as her own. Wherever the interests of Popery can 
be subserved, a preaching station is established, an 
academy founded, or schools opened. As the tide of 
emigration rolls westward, Romanism is always the 
first to erect hospitals, to build churches, and to open 
institutions for the instruction of the young. We are 
learning by experience the truth of the European 
proverb : — " Discover a desert island, and the priest is 
waiting for you on the shore." 

Great shrewdness is also shown in the disposition of 
the men and means at their disposal. Points are 



INTR OD UCTOR Y. 1 5 

selected which may become centres of influence. Their 
strength is not frittered away in sparsely settled rural 
districts ; but establishing themselves in state capitals, 
county towns, and rapidly growing cities, they effect- 
ually guard the interests of Home in all the surround- 
ing country, moulding public opinion, securing influence 
with those who control legislation, and in many 
instances — to the burning shame of Protestantism — 
educating the children of those in the communion of 
the true Church. 

The design of the efforts so persistently made in all 
parts of the west, is clearly announced in a Catholic 
paper in Boston : — " Catholics should control and sway 
the west. The Church has the right to claim the 
immense Yalley of the Mississippi, of which the Jesuit 
missionaries were the first explorers." 

And in the south they are no less active. Organized 
efforts are made, on an extensive scale and with a 
lavish outlay of funds, to bring the freedmen over to 
Popery. At a convention of bishops held a few years 
since in Baltimore, measures to secure this end were 
adopted. The precaution required by the Papal 
Church, of conducting their proceedings with closed 
doors, renders it impossible for us heretics to learn all 
that was done by these assembled dignitaries. That 
agencies were inaugurated to proselyte the colored race 
on this continent is beyond question. And that the 
measures adopted and referred to the Pope for con- 
firmation — whatever they were — received his approval, 



1 6 INTR OP UCTOR Y. 

may be confidently inferred from the fact that the 
" Society for Propagating the Faith," whose office is at 
Rome, straightway contributed $600,000 in gold for 
one year's missionary work among the freedmen in 
our country. Is it not fair to assume that a contribu- 
tion so large presupposes effective agencies for carrying 
forward the work on a scale corresponding with the 
cost? Jesuits — who, in worldly wisdom, if not in 
purity of purpose, have always been pre-eminent — 
seldom invest without securing large dividends, muni- 
ficent returns, in blind attachment to the interests of 
Rome. 

Lavish expenditure is immediately succeeded by 
organized effort. With a celerity evincing great earn- 
estness, sixty-six Romish priests were landed in New 
Orleans to commence missionary efforts. And these, 
we are informed, are only the pioneers, whose business 
it is to examine the field of operations, and report to 
their superiors the force needed, and the points where 
labor can be most advantageously prosecuted. Already 
they have opened large, well-equipped schools for the 
blacks at Raleigh, at Mobile, at New Orleans, and at 
many other important centres of influence. And most 
of these institutions are successful to an extent quite 
disheartening to the friends of Protestantism. They 
have drawn largely from the schools opened by the 
benevolence of the northern Church, and in some in- 
stances have driven their rivals from the field. 

To most Protestants, we presume, it is but too pain- 



INTRODUCTORY. 17 

fully evident that the Eomish Cl*urch, by its gorgeous 
displays, is well fitted to secure a powerful influence 
over the hearts of a half-civilized people. Enslaved by 
ignorance, naturally fond of show, and taught by long 
years of servitude to yield an unquestioning obedience, 
they are quite as likely to accept the religion presented 
them by Rome as the simple unostentatious Gospel of 
Christ. A future not very remote may, therefore, 
possibly witness a control maintained by the Romish 
Church over this helpless race as complete as that now 
exercised over the Irish — a spiritual despotism more 
debasing in its character and more permanent in its 
nature than the slavery from which they have so 
recently emerged. 

Not alone in the west and south, but in the east as 
well, especially in our large cities, Rome is laboring un- 
tiringly to acquire power. Magnificent churches are 
built, hospitals founded, nunneries and monasteries es- 
tablished, schools opened, tracts and pamphlets distri- 
buted gratuitously, and popular lectures — designed to 
prove that Popery is the guardian of morals, the friend 
of civil liberty, the educator of the masses, the dispenser 
of charities to the poor, the inspirer of true devotion, 
and the only gateway to heaven — are frequently and 
unblushingly delivered in the very heart of cities which 
owe all their greatness to the principles of the Protest- 
ant religion. Nor have these efforts proved abortive, 
as New York, alas, can clearly testify. In the centres 
of wealth and culture, which invited those possessing a 



13 INTRODUCTORY. 

religion intensely hostile to our free institutions, Ro- 
manism has proved a Grecian horse, disgorging a legion 
of enemies. Lawlessness, excessive taxation, political 
corruption, and utter contempt for the interests and 
wishes of the people, have followed as naturally as 
darkness succeeds sunset. 

In Rome's list of agencies, schools occupy a promi- 
nent place. If these imparted only secular knowledge, 
the principles of morality and a system of religious 
faith free from superstition, all true friends of the rising 
generation might indeed rejoice. But, alas, the instruc- 
tion is intensely Popish. Avowedly — except in the 
case of Protestant children, and there in reality — the 
primary object is to make the pupils ardent advocates 
of Romanism. Her seventy ecclesiastical institutions, 
her hundreds of colleges and boarding schools, her 2500 
parochial schools, and her Sunday-schools in connection 
with almost every church, are so many nurseries of 
Popery, agencies for riveting the chains of spiritual 
despotism on the coming generation. 

The design of these efforts is plain ; Romanists are 
aiming at power in this country. We need not delude 
ourselves with the belief that they seek only the eternal 
welfare of our people. The aspirations of the Papacy 
in all countries during its entire history of thirteen 
centuries have been to become dominant in the state. 
And we can scarcely hope that an infallible Church will 
change its character at this late day. If the power for 
which they toil so arduously is acquired, there can be 



INTRODUCTORY. 19 

no doubt of the results. Protestantism will be perse- 
cuted, perhaps suppressed, as heretofore in Rome, and 
our free Bible, free schools, and free press will be things 
of the past. Possibly some Protestants with a smile 
of contempt may affirm, " Romanism, at least in this 
country, is a friend of liberty." Let them point, how- 
ever, to the country or the time in which Popery has 
not opposed a will of iron to all free institutions. * 

In estimating the strength of the organization which 
seeks our destruction, we should remember that the 
5,000,000 of our citizens whose first allegiance is due 
to Rome are drilled to implicit obedience and directed 
by one will : that their plans are cunningly masked, 
while ours — if indeed we have any — are well known : 
that they are a unit in action, waging an unceasing 
warfare, resolved on victory; we, disconnected bands, 
without unity of purpose, carrying on at best but a fit- 
ful struggle. Moreover, since they are thoroughly un- 
scrupulous in the use of means, they necessarily wield 
more power with the irreligious masses than we. Pos- 
sibly also the tendency to ritualistic forms, so apparent 
in certain quarters, may prepare the way for Popery 
by producing a love of meaningless rites and imposing 
ceremonies. 

* A Catholic paper of St. Louis said, not many years since : "We 
are not advocates of religious toleration except in cases of necessity. 
. . . . We are not going to deny the facts of history, or blame 
the Church and her saints and doctors, for doing what they have 

done and sanctioned We gain nothing by declaiming 

against the doctrine of civil punishment for spiritual crimes." 



20 1NTR OD UCTOR Y. 

Facts like these, and numerous others which might 
be adduced, make it but too painfully evident that 
there is more than an idle boast in the assertion of the 
Catltolic World, that " The question put to us a few 
years since with a smile of mixed incredulity and pity, 
' Do you believe that this country will ever become 
Catholic?' is changed into the question, 'How soon do 
you think it will come to pass?' Soon, very soon, we 
reply, if statistics be true, for it appears .... that 
the rate of growth of the Catholic religion has been 75 
per cent, greater than the ratio of increase of popula- 
tion ; while the rate of the increase of Protestantism 
has been 11 per cent, less." The Bishop of Cincinnati 
said, in 1866 : " Effectual plans are in operation to give 
us the complete victory over Protestantism." Another 
bishop affirms : " Notwithstanding the Government of 
the United States has thought fit to adopt a complete 
indifference towards all religions, yet, the time is com- 
ing when the Catholics will have the ascendancy." 
The Bishop of Charleston, in his report to Kome, said : 
" Within thirty years the Protestant heresy will come 
to an end." The Pilot, a Catholic paper of Boston, re- 
cently affirmed : " The man is to-day living who will 
see a majority of the people of the American continent 
Koman Catholics." " Let Protestants hate us if they 
will," says another Catholic paper, " but the time will 
come when we will compel them to respect us." Should 
that day ever arrive, we may expect little favor from a 
Church, all of whose priests, according to the assertion 



INTRODUCTORY. 21 

of one of their number, " swear, we will persecute this 
cursed evangelical doctrine as long as we have a drop 
of blood in our veins ; and we will eradicate it, secretly 
and publicly, violently and deceit/idly, with ivords and 
deeds, the sword not exclicded." 

Though there may be no just cause for alarm, there 
certainly is an imperative call to action. Their oft- 
repeated prophecy, that from twenty-five to thirty 
years will suffice to give them a clear majority in this 
country — however absurd it may now seem to many — 
ought to arouse us to renewed exertion. If Papists 
conquered Kome, why may they not conquer America? 
Is it so utterly impossible that the next generation 
should witness the supremacy of Komanism that we 
can afford to fold our arms in ease ? * Possessing the 
balance of power between the two political parties, de- 
manding favorable legislation as the condition of sup- 
port, and wielding political power in some of our largest 
cities, Popery is a foe whose giant strength it is folly 
to underestimate. Already it has succeeded in banish- 

* Speaking of the Papacy,. Mr. Disraeli said, in 1835: "What is 
this power beneath whose sirocco breath the fame of England is fast 
withering ? Were it the dominion of another Conqueror — another 
Bold Bastard with his belted sword — we might gnaw the fetters 
which we cannot burst. Were it the genius of Napoleon with which 
we were again struggling, we might trust the issue to the God of 
battles, with a sainted confidence in our good cause and our national 
energies. But we are sinking beneath a power before which the 
proudest conquerors have grown pale, and by which the nations most 
devoted to freedom have become enslaved — the power of a foreign 
priesthood." 



22 INTJR OD UCTOR Y. 

ing the Bible from some of our public schools, and in 
securing, in some instances in marked degree, the ad- 
vocacy of its interests in the secular press. A contest 
between the Papacy and Protestantism seems therefore 
inevitable. Other names may be substituted — Jesuit- 
ism can readily devise those that will better answer its 
purpose. Under the banner of civil liberty Rome may 
possibly bind upon us the fetters of spiritual despotism. 



PART I. 

Popery the Predicted Enemy of Christ's Kingdom. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE ROMAN POWER FORETOLD. 
(Daniel ii. 31^5.) 

^M OME WHAT like the fabled Sphinx, who, sitting 
by the roadside, propounded her riddle to each 
passer-by, Popery has for centuries demanded 
an explanation of her seemingly charmed life. 
And he who has presumed to give an answer not in 
accordance with her arrogant assumptions, has in- 
curred her lasting enmity ; where she had the power, 
death. If she comes forth from God, however, as she 
claims, how shall we account for the errors, the follies 
and the crimes that blacken her name ? If she is the 
outgrowth of the depraved heart, or Satan's cunning- 
est workmanship, how explain her continued power, 
her seemingly deathless life? Unquestionably the 
explanation is found in the fact that God, for infinitely 
wise purposes unknown to us, permits the continuance 
of this organized adversary of the true Church for the 
express purpose of testing the intelligence, the fidelity, 
and the zeal of his people. 

Should we not expect a prediction of the rise and 
progress of Popery? This would be in accordance 
with God's usual mode of dealing with his Church. 

25 



26 TEE ROMAN POWER FORETOLD. 

Jehovah's purpose of destroying the world by a flood 
was made known one hundred and twenty years before 
its execution. The destruction of Babylon, Nineveh, 
Tyre and Jerusalem, was accurately predicted. So 
likewise it was declared that the descendants of Abra- 
ham should be as numerous as the stars of heaven, 
when as yet he had no child ; and that the land of 
Palestine should be their possession when the Father 
of the Faithful owned not even a burial-place for his 
dead. Not only was the coming of Christ predicted 
immediately after the transgression of our first parents, 
but in subsequent ages, and long prior to the incarna- 
tion, many circumstances of his birth, mission, life and 
death — and some apparently the least important — were 
foretold. 

Nor are the prophecies mere isolated predictions of 
disconnected events. A system dating from the fall, 
and embracing all the principal changes which have 
taken place in either the Church or the world, and 
extending onwards to the final triumph of Christ's 
cause, may be found in Scripture. 

We should not, however, expect predictions respect- 
ing minute particulars. The portraiture of the future 
given by the prophets, is like the vivid description of 
a landscape viewed from a commanding eminence. 
Although the eye of the beholder surveys the whole 
extent, seeing all prominent objects, yet, by describing 
those which from his standpoint are most conspicuous, 
he presents a picture, imperfect indeed, yet accurate, 



THE ROMAN POWER FORETOLD. 27 

of the scene. What description by a master hand is 
to the landscape, the predictions of the prophets are to 
the future. To complete the picture the reader must 
determine the position occupied by the seer in behold- 
ing the ceaseless current of events. 

Hence, doubtless, arises the difficulty in interpreting 
prophecy. We are embarrassed not so much by what 
is said as by what is left unsaid. To unveil the half- 
hidden meaning of a few sentences in which is com- 
pressed the history of centuries is almost or quite 
impossible. Shall we, therefore, give over all effort to 
understand the prophetical books ? Is so large a por- 
tion of the Bible given us merely to confirm the faith 
of the Church after the events referred to have oc- 
curred? This cannot be, otherwise the command, 
" Search the Scripture," would have read, 6 Search the 
Law, the Psalms, and the fulfilled prophecies/ 

In the field of prophecy, co-extensive with time, and 
earnestly soliciting an unprejudiced examination, we 
are led naturally to expect some predictions respecting 
the rise and progress of Popery. It is highly impro- 
bable, scarcely possible, that no place should be found 
for a system of religion which, numbering its adhe- 
rents by millions, has existed for more than twelve 
centuries, and while professing to be the only true 
form of Christian worship, and claiming for its eccle- 
siastical head the titles of " Vicar of Christ" and 
"Vicegerent of God" has not hesitated to claim and 
exercise the right to put to death those who, however 



28 THE ROMAN POWER FORETOLD. 

devout, humble and Christlike in character and con- 
duct, have denied its spiritual supremacy. 

An examination of prophecy, even the most casual, 
reveals, in the Old Testament, two passages which 
refer to the Roman Empire ; the former chiefly to its 
civil, the latter to its ecclesiastical power. In Nebu- 
chadnezzar's dream (Dan. ii. 31-45), we have a pre- 
diction of the rise of the powerful kingdom of the 
west, which, during so many centuries, has lent its 
strength to sustain the Papal Church : 

" Thou, O king, sawest, and behold, a great image. This great 
image, whose brightness was excellent, stood before thee ; and the 
form thereof was terrible. This image's head was of fine gold, his 
breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass, his 
legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay. Thou sawest 
till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image 
upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces. 
Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, 
broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer 
threshing-floors ; and the wind carried them away, that no place 
was found for them : and the stone that smote the image became a 
great mountain, and filled the whole earth." 

Here are presented two, and only two distinct 
objects — "the great image," and "the stone cut out 
without hands." Although the image has its several 
parts — by which four successive kingdoms are repre- 
sented — these constitute the one great figure symbol- 
izing a form of civil government essentially hostile to 
the Church, government by brute force, despotism. 
In all the members the same spirit prevails, hostility 



THE ROMAN POWER FORETOLD. 29 

to the kingdom set up by the God of heaven. Though 
having " his head of fine gold, his arms of silver, his 
belly and his thighs of brass, his legs of iron, his feet 
part of iron and part of clay," yet this image forcibly 
presents the idea of unity. This, which is set forth by 
the first symbol of the dream, is still more distinctly 
represented by the second. The little stone — not 
separated into members, but one and indivisible — is 
well fitted to symbolize the one spiritual kingdom, the 
Church of Jesus Christ, whose unity is preserved by 
the indwelling of the same spirit. As the invisible 
atoms of the stone of necessity cohere, so the different 
members of Christ's Church, however far separated in 
space or time, constitute one spiritual kingdom. 

By the several parts of this figure are represented 
the four kingdoms, the universal empires of the world. 
"The head of fine gold" is a symbol of the Assyrio- 
Babylonian Empire, founded, in the valley of the 
Euphrates, by Nimrod, the grandson of Noah. Of this 
kingdom the chief cities were Babylon and Nineveh.* 
" The breast and arms of silver " represented the Medo- 
Persian Empire, founded by Cyrus on the ruins of the 
Assyrio-Babylonian. It is probably not pressing the 
symbol too far to suppose that by the arms are repre- 
sented the two nations, the Medes and Persians, 
which uniting constituted this kingdom. The third 

* These alternatively held each other in subjection till the year 625 
b. c, when Nineveh was finally overthrown by the combined forces 
of the Medes and of Nabopolz 



30 THE ROMAN POWER FORETOLD. 

kingdom, symbolized by "the belly and thighs of 
brass," was the Graeco-Macedonian, founded by Alex- 
ander the Great. Before this victorious warrior the 
preceding kingdoms crumbled to pieces, and the king- 
dom of brass ruled the world. The two thighs may be 
intended to represent the two most powerful divisions 
of this kingdom — the Ptolemies in Egypt, and the 
SeleucidaB in Syria. 

The fourth kingdom is the Koman.* In reference 
to this the prophecy is fuller, both as respects its char- 
acter and its collision with the little stone. Its form 
of government, partly despotic and partly republican, 
combining the strength of iron with the brittleness of 
clay, is represented by "the legs of iron and the feet 
part of iron and part of clay." Whereas the former 
three kingdoms were pure despotisms, this, whilst even 
more despotic, as symbolized by the harder metal, 
iron, always contained an element of weakness. 
Under the form of a republic — which was often little 
more than a name — it maintained a stronger hold on 
the affections of its subjects, and, therefore, secured 
longer continuance. Yet, whilst always endeavoring 
to convert the fragility of clay into the hardness of 
iron, it failed in the end, and crumbled to pieces. 

"And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron : forasmuch as 
iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things : and as iron that 
breaketh all these, shall it break in pieces and bruise. And 

* Rome was founded in 753 b. c, about 150 years before the utter- 
ance of Daniel's prophecy. 



THE ROMAN POWER FORETOLD. 31 

whereas thou sawest the feet and toes part of potter's clay and 
part of iron, the kingdom shall be divided ; but there shall be in 
it of the strength of the iron, forasmuch as thou sawest the iron 
mixed with miry clay. And as the toes of the feet were part of 
iron, and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong, and 
partly broken. And whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry 
clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men ; but they 
shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with 
clay. And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set 
up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed : and the kingdom 
shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and 
consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever. Foras- 
much as thou sawest that the stone was cut out of the mountain 
without hands, and that it brake in pieces the iron, the brass, the 
clay, the silver, and the gold ; the great God hath made known to 
the king what shall come to pass hereafter : and the dream is cer- 
tain, and the interpretation thereof sure." — Dan. ii. 40-45. 

Here it is expressly said that " the fourth kingdom 
shall be strong as iron, and break in pieces and 
bruise." During its existence as a limited monarchy 
(nearly two hundred and Mty years), it gradually ex- 
tended its power till all the surrounding nations fell 
before its victorious arms. The exact date of its 
succession to the kingdom of brass we cannot fix. 
Of the fact, however, there can be no doubt. From 
the year 509 to 48 b. c, during her existence as a 
republic, Eome extended her conquests over a great 
part of Asia, Africa and Europe. Britain was twice 
entered. Caesar's legions penetrated to the heart of 
Germany. Macedon, Syria and Egypt were conquered. 
After the battle of Pharsalia (48 b. a), in which 



32 THE ROMAN POWER FORETOLD. 

Pompey, the commander of the armies of the republic, 
was utterly defeated by Caesar, the government was 
imperial rather than republican. For five hundred 
and twenty-four years subsequent to this, the emperors, 
for the most part, were content with retaining those 
provinces which were conquered under the republic. 
The advice bequeathed by Augustus, of confining the 
empire within its natural limits, the Euphrates, the 
Desert of Africa, the Atlantic Ocean, and the Rhine 
and Danube, was seldom departed from. A few ex- 
ceptions there indeed were. Britain was made to 
submit to the Roman yoke during the reign of Dorui- 
tian; Dacia, Armenia and Assyria during that of 
Trajan. 

The fourth kingdom was, as Daniel had predicted, 
strong as iron, enduring in its three forms, of a mon- 
archy, a republic and an empire, for more than twelve 
centuries, and wielding, for nearly the half of this long 
period, the sceptre of universal dominion. During all 
the ages of its existence, however, it was " iron mixed 
with miry clay." It was never a firmly consolidated 
empire. It was the unnatural union of despotism and 
democracy. 

Of the Roman state, the fourth section of the image, 
Daniel declared, "the kingdom shall be divided." 
The ten toes, like the ten horns of the fourth beast, 
(Dan. vii. 24, and Rev. xvii. 16,) represent the ten 
kingdoms established on the fall of the empire. " The 
fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom 



THE ROMAN POWER FORETOLD. 33 

And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings 
that shall arise." By the reasoning of Bishop Newton, 
it has been successfully established that these ten 
kingdoms should be looked for in the Western Roman 
Empire, that portion of the fourth kingdom which was 
no part of the preceding three. As to the powers 
constituting them, however, diversity of opinion always 
has, and perhaps always will, exist. 

By the words, "they shall not cleave one to an- 
other," we have, perhaps, a prediction that the ten 
kingdoms shall never again be united in one empire. 
Certain it is, that since 476 (the date of the downfall 
of the Roman Empire generally received) they have, 
with very slight changes, remained territorially the 
same. 

By "the stone cut out of the mountain without 
hands" is symbolized the kingdom of Christ, which 
" the God of heaven shall set up," and " which shall 
never be destroyed." These expressions, and espe- 
cially the latter, are evidently inapplicable to any form 
of civil government. " Cut out without hands " indi- 
cates God's agency, and not man's. Of the " kingdom 
not of this world," all the benefits, blessings and priv- 
ileges are heaven's free gift to the human race. And 
of what earthly kingdom could perpetuity be predi- 
cated ? Is not decay written on all ? 

Of this kingdom two states are here prefigured ; one 
of comparative insignificance, represented by the stone; 
one of widely extended and powerful influence, symbo- 



34 THE ROMAN POWER FORETOLD. 

lized by the mountain. The same gradual growth is 
alluded to in Christ's parable of the Mustard Seed. 

We are also told when this kingdom shall arise : 
" In the days of these kings." It was during the ex- 
istence of the last of the four, when the entire world 
humbly bowed at the throne of the proud Csesars, that 
God, by the incarnation of his Son, set up, or perhaps 
more properly, as the Latin Vulgate has it, "resus- 
citated''' a kingdom. Having existed since the Fall, it 
was now strengthened, enlarged, and its privileges ex- 
tended to the Gentiles. 

In this entire prophecy reference is evidently had to 
the rise and progress of that empire which, divided 
into ten kingdoms, has given its power and strength to 
Popery. It makes war with the Lamb. It is the enemy 
of the Church and of Republicanism, the deadly foe 
of liberty, civil and religious, personal and national. 
With democracy it can form no alliance, and will make 
no compromise. The iron will not mix with the clay. 
With Protestantism, the parent and champion of con- 
stitutional government, it wages unceasing warfare. 
Deriving moral support from Popery, its natural ally, 
it is antagonistic to the kingdom of the little stone, so 
far at least as this is hostile to despotism. 

The warfare, desperate and deadly, is not carried on, 
however, with carnal weapons. Noiselessly, but with 
terrible earnestness, the struggle is prolonged through 
centuries. Kingdoms rise, grow hoary with age and 
crumble to decay, still the contest is undecided. The 




ORIENTAL PATRIARCH FORCED TO RESIGN HIS RIGHTS. Page 122, 



THE -ROMAN POWER FORETOLD. 35 

three kingdoms, of gold, of silver and of brass, have 
become as " chaff of the summer threshing-floors," but 
the stone has not yet become a great mountain filling 
the whole earth. Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus, Alexander 
and Caesar, sleep in their unknown graves, but not as 
yet have the feet and the toes of the great image, re- 
vealed in the palace of Shushan, crumbled to pieces. 

Of the ten kingdoms which, "with one mind gave 
their power and strength unto the beast," some are 
yielding to the rule of Immanuel ; others, in still lend- 
ing their strength to the papal Antichrist, are filling to 
the full the cup of wrath. In their adulterous alliance 
with the Mother of Harlots they are aiding in sustain- 
ing a system which, "composed of specious truth and 
solid falsehood," is at war with the fundamental doc- 
trines of the Gospel. The Christian's hope is sus- 
tained, however, by the assurance, "The ten horns 
which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate the 
whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and 
shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire." * Of Christ's 
kingdom it is said, "It shall break in pieces and con- 
sume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever." 

*Rev. xvii. 16. 




CHAPTER II. 

THE PAPACY PREDICTED AS THE FOE OF THE TRUE CHURCH 
(Daniel vii. 2-27.) 

T is the assertion of Protestants not only that 
Rome's civil power, but that the Papacy itself, 
was predicted twelve centuries before its rise. 
Of this affirmation the truth becomes apparent 
if to a description of Nebuchadnezzar's image be added 
an examination of Daniel's vision ; for by the former 
is foretold Rome's civil despotism — by the latter, her 
spiritual. The powers represented to the king as four 
kingdoms, appeared in vision to the prophet as four 
wild beasts trampling upon Christianity. To the 
monarch even the Church is "a kingdom which the 
God of heaven should set up," small indeed in its 
origin, but destined to fill the whole earth; to the 
prophet it is a feeble band of struggling martyrs, " the 
saints of the Most High," oppressed by the little horn 
of the fourth beast. It is a small and scattered com- 
pany of faithful witnesses, ground down by the Papal 
hierarchy for the term of 1260 years, yet, inspired 
with faith in God's promises, suffering in the assured 
hope of ultimate triumph. Daniel says : 

" I saw in my vision by night, and behold, the four winds of the 
36 



PAPACY THE FOE OF THE CHURCH. 37 

heaven strove upon the great sea. And four great beasts came 
up from the sea, diverse one from another. The first was like a 
lion, and had eagle's wings : I beheld till the wings thereof were 
plucked, and it was lifted up from the earth, and made stand 
upon the feet as a man, and a man's heart was given to it. And, 
behold, another beast, a second, like to a bear, and it raised up it- 
self on one side, and it had three ribs in the mouth of it between 
the teeth of it : and they said thus unto it, Arise, devour much 
flesh. After this, I beheld, and lo, another, like a leopard, which 
had upon the back of it four wings of a fowl ; the beast had also 
four heads ; and dominion was given to it After this I saw in 
the night visions, and behold, a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, 
and strong exceedingly ; and it had great iron teeth : it devoured 
and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it : 
and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it ; and it 
had ten horns. I considered the horns, and behold, there came 
up among them another little horn, before whom there were three 
of the first hornB plucked up by the roots : and behold, in this 
horn were eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great 
things."— Dan. vii. 2-8. 

These four beasts arise out of the troubled sea of 
human society. "The first, like a lion," symbolizes 
the Babylonian Empire, the characteristics of which 
were boldness, consciousness of power, cunning and 
cruelty. "The wings of an eagle" represent its rapid 
conquests. In the later years of the empire these were 
plucked. Its victorious arms no longer struck terror. 
By the expression " a man's heart was given unto it," 
we are to understand that the rigors of despotism were 
somewhat abated. 

By the " second beast, like to a bear," is symbolized 
the kingdom of the Medes and Persians. In the ex- 



38 PAPACY THE FOE OF TEE CHURCH. 

pression, " it raised up itself on one side," we find a 
prophecy of the superior enegy and efficiency of one 
of the nations constituting this kingdom. The three 
ribs in the mouth of it denote a partially civilized 
people in the act of devouring kingdoms to increase 
their own strength. The command, "Arise, devour 
much flesh," was fulfilled by Cyrus. 

"The third beast, like a leopard," represents the 
Grseco-Macedonian empire. The rapidity of Alex- 
ander's conquests, by the aid of his four distinguished 
generals, is denoted by "the four wings of a fowl," 
and the division of the kingdom on his death, by 
four heads. 

Having premised this much — which seemed neces- 
sary to an understanding of the scope of this famous 
prophecy — we hasten to consider the fourth beast. As 
this represents a power still in existence, and bitterly 
hostile to Christianity, it is, to us, more deeply inter- 
esting than its predecessors. Of it the interpreting 
angel says : 

"The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth, 
which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the 
whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces. And 
the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise : 
and another shall rise after them ; and he shall be diverse from 
the first, and he shall subdue three kings. And he shall speak 
great words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints 
of the Most High, and think to change times and laws : and they 
shall be given into his hand, until a time and times and the divid- 
ing of time. But the judgment shall sit, and they shall take away 



PAPACY THE FOE OF THE CHURCH. 39 

his dominion, to consume and to destroy it unto the end. And the 
kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under 
the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the 
Most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all 
dominions shall serve and obey him." — Dan. vii. 23-27. 

Diverse from all others, being the union of monarch- 
ical and republican principles, it had the power to 
repress revolt and the facility of adapting itself to the 
ever varying phases of human society. Hence, for 
more than six centuries, half the time between its 
founding and the division into the ten kingdoms, its 
very name was a terror. Of her extent and power we 
need no proof. " Half our learning is her epitaph." 
She became terrible and strong exceedingly. By her 
invincible legions all independent nationalities were 
trampled in pieces. Being first crushed, they were 
devoured, and became parts of the all-embracing em- 
pire. At length, as we have seen (Chapter I.),, this 
kingdom was divided into ten, represented in Daniel's 
vision by ten horns ; in Nebuchadnezzar's by the toes 
of the image. Thus, on the Koman state are found 
all the marks of the beast. 

Among the ten horns another little horn came up, 
"before whom there were three of the first horns 
plucked up by the roots." The belief that this little 
horn represents the Papal hierarchy is, among Protes- 
tants, almost universal. It was to arise after the ten 
kingdoms. These arose in the interval between 356 
and 526 A. d. The Papacy, after gradually acquiring 



40 PAPACY THE FOE OF THE CHURCH. 

power for three centuries, was perfected as an engine 
of ecclesiastical despotism in 606 A. D., when Phocas, 
the murderer and usurper, conferred upon Boniface III. 
the title of Universal Bishop. Then Romanism, as a 
system of oppression, became complete. The little 
horn had grown upon the unsightly monster. 

The three horns plucked up by the roots were, it is 
commonly believed, the kingdom of the Goths, of the 
Ostrogoths, and of the Lombards. 

Of this last foe of the true Church, the characteristics 
are given by Daniel. "And behold, in this horn were 
eyes like the eyes of a man." " By its eyes," says Sir 
Isaac Newton, "it was a seer. A seer is a bishop; 
and this Church claims the universal bishopric." Ec- 
clesiastical power is its most marked characteristic. 
In this it is " diverse from all the kingdoms that were 
before it." The mode in which this unlimited author- 
ity was acquired, furnishes an instructive chapter in 
history. On the conversion of Constantine, a golden 
opportunity was given of evangelizing the world. The 
bishops of Rome, however, caring more to extend their 
own authority than to spread a knowledge of the 
truth, labored zealously to acquire rule over the entire 
Church. Their stupendous assumptions, favored by 
the profound ignorance of the people, made the effort 
comparatively easy. Soon the Pope's authority was 
believed to be equal, and by some, even superior to 
that of a General Council. Still, by the more intel- 
ligent of the clergy, these claims were stoutly resisted. 



PAPACY THE FOE OF THE CHURCH. 41 

Refusing, however, with characteristic effrontery, to 
yield the assumed right to all authority, secular and 
religious, they in the end won the victory — -the Roman 
bishop was acknowledged spiritual and temporal sover- 
eign. Henceforth the episcopal court occupied the room 
of the imperial. 

Again; it is said, "He shall speak great words 
against the Most High." The arrogant assumptions of 
the Popes know no bounds. They claim to be legi- 
timate successors of the Apostle Peter, vicegerents of 
God, vicars of Christ. In their possession, they gravely 
tell us, are the keys of heaven and of hell. Sitting in 
the temple of God, the Pope may deal out glory or dam- 
nation, as suits his fancy. Even each priest, according 
to Roman infallibility, can forgive sins, and sell the 
most enrapturing bliss of heaven to the highest bidder 
or the wealthiest knave. Liguori — one of their canon- 
ized saints, and whose "Moral Theology," a standard text- 
book in their theological schools, is declared, by the 
highest papal authority, to be " sound and according to 
God " — affirms, " the proper form of absolution is indi- 
cative : I, the priest, absolve thee." To the claim of sole 
right to interpret Scripture, the Pope adds the still 
more absurd claim of infallibility. This, so recently 
exalted into a dogma, every true Catholic, according to 
the Freeman s Journal of August 20th, 1870, must cor- 
dially assent to, and believe with the whole heart. And 
the London Vatican of July 29th, 1870, uses this lan- 
guage : " It was not enough that a mortal should rule 



42 PAPACY THE FOE OF THE CHURCH. 

over God's kingdom on earth, unless the keys of heaven 
were also committed to him. He (the Pope) was to reign 
in both worlds at once. It would seem that God in stoop- 
ing to become man, had almost made man God! 1 Again : 
" He who lifts up his hand against the Pope resembles, 
without knowing it, the accursed Jew who smote Jesus 
in the face." And again : " The Church has told them 
(the heretics) who and what his Yicar is. Either her 
message is true, and then all who refuse obedience to the 
chair of St. Peter are rebels against the Most High, and 
without hope of salvation ; or it is false, and then the 
Church of Christ has ceased to exist." u Not a few are 
found," we are told in the fourth chapter of the Consti- 
tution lately promulgated, " who resist it," and for this 
reason, says the Decree, " we deem it altogether neces- 
sary solemnly to assert that prerogative {infallibility) 
which the only begotten Son of God deigned to annex to 
the supreme pastoral office." Surely Popery has a mouth 
speaking great things. 

Daniel further says, " I beheld, and the same horn 
made war with the saints, and prevailed against them." 
And the interpreting angel says, " He shall wear out the 
saints of the Most High." What language could more 
fitly characterize the Papacy ? It has waged for more 
than twelve centuries a relentless warfare against 
the followers of Christ. We may affirm, and with- 
out exaggeration, that this little horn of the fourth 
beast, the Papacy, has put to death millions of Chris- 
tians. And of thousands of others the lives have 



PAPACY THE FOE OF THE CHURCH. 43 

been rendered more intolerable than death itself. His- 
tory proves the appropriateness of the names given 
to Popery in Revelation, "the scarlet colored beast, 
drunk with the blood of the saints, and of the mar- 
tyrs of Jesus ; " " the tormentor of the saints of the 
Most High." 

" He shall think to change times and seasons." Who, 
since the days of Julius Csesar, save the Popes, has 
assumed the right of regulating the calendar, and enact- 
ing laws for the world ? 

With the interpretation of Daniel's expression, "a 
time, and times, and the dividing of time," we have, in 
this chapter, little to do. It may be, and most prob- 
ably is, an equivalent of the expression in Revelation, 
" a thousand two hundred and threescore days." Each, 
perhaps, may be properly understood as indicating the 
continuance of Rome's temporal supremacy, 1260 years. 
Possibly, also, dating the rise of Antichrist in A. D. 606, 
when Boniface III. was declared universal bishop, we 
ought to have expected, between the years 1866 and 
1872, the overthrow of the Pope's authority. And 
some, no doubt, will imagine that in the removal of the 
French troops from Rome, in the overthrow of Napo- 
leon III., and in the Pope's loss of temporal power — fol- 
lowing as they did so close on the promulgation of the 
dogma of Papal infallibility — they discern one of the 
last acts in the drama of this mystery of arrogance. 

Not less foreign to our present purpose is the expla- 
nation of the passage, " But the judgment shall sit, and 



44 PAPACY THE FOE OF THE CHURCH. 

they shall take away his dominion to consume and to 
destroy it unto the end." That this powerful foe of the 
true Church is to continue — not in its temporal power, 
but in its spiritual — till the judgment of the great day, 
seems highly probable. Paul affirms, " Then shall that 
Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume 
with the spirit of his mouth, and slwll destroy with tJw 
brightness of his coming" * In the Apocalypse (xiii. 3), 
where the history of this scourge of Christianity is 
fully given, we are told " the deadly wound shall be 
healed, and all the world shall wonder after the beast/' 
It seems probable, and some tell us certain, that the 
system of superstition, known as Popery, shall "continue 
unto the end ; " that through all time it is to be the re- 
lentless enemy of the Church. 

However this may be, certain it is that the Papacy 
is described in this chapter as during its entire contin- 
uance the uncompromising foe of Christ's kingdom. 
Bearing unmistakably the marks of the little horn of 
the fourth beast, having an ever-living connection with 
the despotism from which it sprang, and waging an in- 
cessant warfare with the saints of the Most High, it 
has ever shown itself the tireless enemy of civil and 
religious liberty, of Christianity, and of Republicanism. 
As such it was predicted. As such it has ever been 
known. And yet, either with blindness that deserves 
pity, or with arrogance that richly merits rebuke, it 

* 2 Thess. ii. 8. 



PAPACY THE FOE OF THE CHURCH. 45 

even now proudly claims to be the Church, the only 
Church, Holy Mother infallible, visibly guided by the 
indwelling of the Holy Ghost, the guardian of morals, 
the guide of conscience, the most efficient agent of civili- 
zation, the friend of freedom. 




CHAPTER III. 

FORMALISM AN OLD ENEMY OF CHRISTIANITY. 
(2 Thess. ii. 7.) 

APISTS — we shall seldom honor them with the 
name of Catholics — greatly pride themselves in 
the antiquity of their organization. They boast- 
ingly ask Protestants, " Where was your so-called 
Church three centuries ago?" With a frequency and 
an eagerness which painfully remind one of the struggles 
of a drowning man, they quote, in proof of Rome's 
greatness and especially of her perpetuity, a passage 
from Lord Macaulay's " Review of Ranke's History of 
the Popes : " 

" No other institution (save the Catholic Church) is 
left standing which carries the mind back to the times 
when the smoke of sacrifice rose from the Pantheon, 
and when camelopards and tigers bounded in the Fla- 
vian amphitheatre. The proudest royal houses are but 
of yesterday compared with the line of the supreme 
Pontiffs. That line we trace back in an unbroken series 
from the Pope who crowned Napoleon in the nineteenth 
century to the Pope who crowned Pepin in the eighth ; 
and far beyond the time of Pepin the august dynasty 
extends, till it is lost in the twilight of fable. .... 

46 



FORMALISM. 47 

Nor do we see any sign which indicates that the term 
of her long dominion is approaching. She saw the 
commencement of all the governments and all the ec- 
clesiastical establishments that now exist in the world ; 
and we feel no assurance that she is not destined to see 
the end of them all. She was great and respected be- 
fore the Saxon had set foot on Britain, before the Frank 
had passed the Rhine, when Grecian eloquence still 
flourished in Antioch, when idols were still worshipped 
in the temple of Mecca. And she may still exist in 
undiminished vigor when some traveller from New 
Zealand shall, in the midst of a vast solitude, take his 
stand on a broken arch of London Bridge to sketch the 
ruins of St. Paul's." 

By the music of this inflated eloquence they have 
beat many an inglorious retreat. Nay, it has even 
done service in leading an attack. The Rev. James 
Kent Stone, a recent pervert to Popery, in his " Invi- 
tation Heeded," hurls it against the luckless head of 
defeated Protestantism. But how much argument is 
there in it ? The devil is as old as the Romish Church, 
and a little older, and probably has quite as long a 
lease on life ; is he any better for that ? If, however, 
an answer is necessary, or rather possible — bombast is 
generally unanswerable — it may be found in an appeal 
from the youthful, " vealy" reviewer, to the mature, ac- 
curate, learned and elegant historian ; from Macaulay, 
the youth giving promise of future greatness, to Ma- 
caulay, the intellectual giant. In his "History of 



48 FORMALISM, 

England/' with a sword that cuts the keener for Its 
polished beauty, he lays bare the treacherous heart, 
pierces the arrogant assumptions, unveils the concealed 
wickedness, and utterly demolishes many of the absurd . 
claims of the Papacy. One quotation must suffice. 
This, chosen because of its bearing on our general sub- 
ject, the hostility of Popery to modern civilization, shall 
be taken from Vol. I. chap. i. page 37 : 

" During the last three centuries, to stunt the growth 
of the human mind has been her (the Church of Rome's) 
chief object. Throughout Christendom, whatever ad- 
vance has been made in knowledge, in freedom, in 
wealth, and in the arts of life, has been made in spite 
of her, and has everywhere been in inverse proportion 
to her power. The loveliest and most fertile provinces 
of Europe have, under her rule, been sunk in poverty, 
in political servitude, and in intellectual torpor ; while 
Protestant countries, once proverbial for sterility and 
barbarism, have been turned, by skill and industry, into 
gardens, and can boast of a long list of heroes and 
statesmen, philosophers and poets. Whoever, knowing 
what Italy and Scotland naturally are, and what, four 
hundred years ago, they actually were, shall now com- 
pare the country round Rome with the country round 
Edinburgh, will be able to form some judgment as to 
the tendency of Papal domination. The descent of 
Spain, once the first among monarchies, to the lowest 
depths of degradation, the elevation of Holland, in spite 
of many disadvantages, to a position such as no com- 



FORMALISM. 49 

monwealth so small has ever reached, teach the same 
lesson." 

If by Rome's claim to antiquity is meant that her 
doctrines antedate those of Protestantism, few things 
are more untrue. The cardinal beliefs of the Reformed 
Churches are as old as the Gospel, nay, as the giving 
of the law from Mount Sinai, nay, as the announcement 
of salvation made to Eve in Eden. These doctrines, — 
that the one living and true God is the only legitimate 
object of divine worship ; that Christ is the only Sa- 
viour, a perfect sacrifice ; that his kingdom is not of 
this world, but an invisible, spiritual kingdom, com- 
posed of the faithful and their infant children ; that the 
condition of union with his spouse, the Church, is re- 
generation of heart wrought by God's spirit ; that the 
triune God alone can pardon sin ; that he and he ex- 
clusively is the Lord of the conscience, — are doctrines 
not only as old as the Reformation, but as old as the 
inspired Word of God, and as imperishable as the Church 
itself. But the dogmas of Romanism are a mere novelty 
in the religious world. Thus the primacy of Peter, a 
doctrine now considered vital to the system, is of 
comparatively recent origin. Admitting that Peter 
was in Rome, we may safely challenge the proof that 
he was universal bishop. And his successors? They 
were persons so obscure that even Papal infallibility 
cannot agree upon their names. Though Vicars of 
Christ, supreme pontiffs, they are never even alluded 
to by the Apostle John, Peter's survivor for at least 



50 • FORMALISM. 

forty years. Undutiful son, write so much Scripture, 
and make no mention of Holy Father ! Strange indeed! 
Notwithstanding Pius IX., in his Invitation " To all 
P)'otestants and other Non- Catholics" declares, "No one 

can deny or doubt that Jesus Christ himself 

built his only Church hi this world on Peter ; that is to 
say, the Church, One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic," 
we have the heretical hardihood to affirm that the pri- 
macy of Peter was entirely unknown in the early ages 
of the Church. It was devised in the latter part of the 
sixth century — a means to the accomplishment of an 
end — to bolster up the assumptions of Rome's proud 
bishops. So likewise the supremacy of the Pope (never 
even claimed till A. d. 590) was resisted by Councils, 
denounced by many of the ablest of the fathers, and 
condemned by an infallible Pope and canonized saint, 
Gregory. (See next Chapter.) The invocation of the 
dead, now so common with Romanists, did not even 
begin to manifest itself till the third century. The use 
of masses, solemnly condemned in the Council of Con- 
stantinople, A. d. 700, and again in the seventh Greek 
Council, 754, was not established till the ninth century. 
The doctrine of purgatory — the hen that lays the golden 
egg — was not an essential part of Popery till the Coun- 
cil of Florence, A.- d. 1430. The doctrine of celibacy — 
that mark of the great apostasy, " forbidding to marry," 
(1 Tim. iv. 3,) is only about 780 years old. For nearly 
eleven centuries every priest might have a wife, and 
live a life free from scandal. Now thev are " Fathers " 



FORMALISM. 51 

without wives. Transubstantiation — Papal cannibalism 
— did not originate till about the middle of the fifth 
century, and was severely denounced by some fifteen 
or twenty of Rome's most honored fathers. Not till 
A. d. 1215, in the fourth Lateran Council, was it ex- 
alted into a dogma. So also the insufficiency of the 
Bible as a rule of faith and practice is an assertion fre- 
quently and pointedly condemned by at least a dozen 
of the fathers, Rome's invariable resort. The adoration 
of relics — that wondrous promoter of traffic in dry bones 
— originated about the same time as the worship of 
saints and martyrs. The withholding of the cup from 
the laity was pronounced by Pope Gelasius (a. d. 492) 
to be an " impious sacrilege." And to our own times 
was left the honor — if honor it be to have outstripped 
the superstition of the dark ages — of promulgating the 
dogma of the " Immaculate conception of the Virgin," 
" Mother of God," " Mirror of Justice," " Refuge of Sin- 
ners," and " Gate of Heaven." In fact, not till the pre- 
sent year was the system rendered complete, symmetri- 
cal, perfect. It needed, like Buddhism, its elder sister, 
the solemn announcement of the infallibility of the su- 
preme pontiff. This, after six months' angry discussion, 
has been ostentatiously presented to the world as the 
infallible dogma of five hundred fallible bishops. (How 
many fallibles may be necessary to make an infallible, 
possibly Pio Nono can now tell.) Thus we can conclu- 
sively show that the distinctive doctrines and rites of 
Romanism are mere novelties, less ancient than the 
doctrines and practices of Protestantism. 



52 FORMALISM. 

If by her claim to antiquity, however, is meant that 
the unhallowed love of forms is as old as the Gospel, 
we do not deny it. Even in the Apostle's time, de- 
praved man was beginning to corrupt the pure religion 
of Jesus. " The mystery of iniquity," said Paul, "doth 
already work, only he who now letteth (hindereth) will 
let, until he be taken out of the way." As under the 
tuition of Satan, the deceitful heart developed every 
system of false religion by which the world had been 
deluded, so by cunningly employing the truth revealed 
by Christ, it was commencing to weave a new system 
of superstition as much like to Paganism, as two gar- 
ments made from the same material are like to each 
other. Originating in the preference of the forms of 
devotion to the spirit — a tendency dating backward 
to the Fall — this mystery of iniquity, after centuries 
of gradual development, culminated in Romanism, 
Satan's last agency for recruiting the armies doing 
battle with the truth. Though last, its efficiency is by 
no means least, since the unrenewed naturally turn 
from the salvation of the Lord to that which, being of 
their own devising, is more congenial to fallen human 
nature, easier of attainment, and more flattering to 
vanity. 

In one sense, therefore, we are ready to concede that 
Popery's claim to antiquity is well founded. Roman- 
ism, as ritualism, has always existed, not only in the 
Pagan world — Paganism is unbaptized Popery — but 
also in connection with the religion revealed from 



FORMALISM. 53 

heaven, and probably will continue to the end of time, 
and be destroyed only by the brightness of the Saviour's 
coming. It originated in Eden ; at once becoming more 
pleasing to sensuous man than the worship of God in 
spirit and in truth. Cain — preferring self-chosen rites 
to those enjoined by express divine command, and des- 
titute of the spiritual vision of Christ as the sin-atoning 
Lamb — was a type of Pagan, Jew, Papist, all ritualists. 
And what was the worship of the wicked antediluvians 
but one of rites? What was Judaism itself, during 
almost the entire history of the Jewish nation, but a 
religion of ceremonies ? Its ritual service, though in- 
tended and well adapted to keep the vital truths of 
redemption prominently before the mind, was allowed 
by many, may we not say by most, to assume such an 
importance as to overshadoio the tree of righteousness. 
Hence, failing to apprehend its true spirit, they cruci- 
fied him whom the types distinctly prefigured. Coming 
as " a preacher of righteousness," and not to establish 
a kingdom in which the forms of devotion should pre- 
vail without piety in the heart, he was put to death, 
and that by those whose mission it was to announce 
him as the world's spiritual deliverer. 

So likewise Phariseeism, loaded with traditions and 
meaningless moral distinctions, was only Popery under 
another name. Hostile, then, as ever to the true 
Church, it was severely denounced by Christ. In his 
Sermon on the Mount, he laid the axe at the root of 
the evil, declaring that the righteousness which God 



54 FORMALISM. 

accepts is not mere compliance with certain outward 
requirements of the law and the observance of tradi- 
tional precepts, but piety in the heart. All, therefore, 
whether Pharisees or Eomanists, who so love the forms 
of worship and exalt the "traditions of the fathers" 
as to make " the word of God of none effect," are con- 
demned in terms too explicit to be misunderstood. 

Even in the Church of Christ, where the very first 
requirement is spirituality, this tendency to ritualism 
manifested itself. As Christianity was the outgrowth 
of Judaism, some were strongly disposed to place re- 
liance in forms. "Certain men who came down from 
Judea taught the people, except ye be circumcised after 
the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved." Evidently 
some were trusting to the observance of a profitless rite. 
The mystery was working. The germ of Popery was 
developing. For the purpose of crushing this, a coun- 
cil, summoned from the entire Church, consisting of 
apostles and elders (Peter, it would seem, was not Pope), 
assembled in Jerusalem. After much discussion, in 
which Paul and Barnabas and James, as well as Peter, 
engaged, "the apostles and elders and brethren" (evi- 
dently there was as yet no spiritual sovereign) sent 
letters " unto the brethren of the Gentiles," affirming. 
" It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us to lay 
upon you no greater burden than necessary things." 
" Believing that through the grace of our Lord Jesus 
Christ we shall be saved," they condemned dependence 
on circumcision, on any and every outward form, re- 



FORMALISM. 55 

commending Christians to the merit of Christ for re- 
demption. Only necessary things, the essentials of 
religion, were enjoined. Thus the primitive Church, 
in council assembled, not only furnished evidence of 
the early working of this "mystery of iniquity," and a 
refutation of the claim of supremacy for Peter, but in 
reality most solemnly and emphatically condemned 
the spirit of Popery, the ever existing and always per- 
nicious tendency to rely upon the outward rites of 
religion. 

Few unbiassed readers will hesitate in conceding that 
Paul's Epistles, and especially the one to the Galatians, 
were written with the design of denouncing the ten- 
dency to ritualism. He endeavors to refute the errors 
which were beginning to pervert the Gospel. He di- 
rects believers to Christ, and to Christ alone. He 
condemns dependence on forms — on anything save the 
blood of Jesus. In holy earnestness he exclaims, 
" Though w r e, or an angel from heaven, preach any 
other Gospel unto you than that we have preached, let 
him be accursed." Full well did the Apostle discern 
the tendency of the human heart to become enamored 
with forms, and in the observance of these, vainly, 
and perhaps unconsciously, fancy it is working out its 
own salvation, content without the sense of forgiveness 
from Christ, or the spirit of godliness in the souh 
Therefore, of this "mystery of iniquity" he affirms, "it 
doth already work." 

But although thus sternly reproved, in the lapse of 



56 FORMALISM. 

time, from depraved human nature, it again sprang up, 
and having established itself, has tyrannized over the 
souls of men for nearly thirteen centuries. Hence, in 
one sense, we are ready to admit the claims of the 
Papists that theirs is the ancient Church. The prin- 
ciples upon which they found their system are as old 
as the Fall, and as enduring as the human race : but 
so far from receiving any countenance from Christ and 
his apostles, they were severely denounced by them; 
but arising out of corrupt human nature, however fre- 
quently refuted, and however severely condemned, 
they are sure to reappear, and almost certain to find 
stanch advocates. When these principles, perceptible 
only in germ in the Apostles' time, had gained the 
ascendency, Antichrist had arisen ; the power and the 
spirit of godliness were supplanted by dead forms, 
"the man of sin" "the son of perdition" "the mystery 
of iniquity" " that Wicked" was revealed. 

It is scarcely necessary for us to remind the reflect- 
ing reader that Eomanism, as ritualism, as cold and 
heartless formalism, not only has ever shown itself the 
enemy of a pure, spiritual, unfettered Gospel, but the 
endeared associate of despotism. If not the foe, it 
certainly has not been the friend of free institutions. 
Its pomp and glitter, its extravagance and meaningless 
'pageantry, ill comport with the simplicity, economy, 
and rugged intelligence of Republicanism. Ritualism, 
Popery, despotism; intelligence, Protestantism, civil 
liberty, are inseparable friends. 




THE CEREMONY OF WASHING FEET. 



Page 146. 



CHAPTER IV. 

ROMANISM AN APOSTASY. 
(2 Thess. ii. 3-12.) 

'N the prophecy of Paul, the organized opposition 
to the Church is denominated "the man of sin," 
" the son of perdition/' " the mystery of iniquity," 
" that Wicked." That the passage is a prediction 
of the rise, progress and overthrow of Popery, an ex- 
amination, we think, makes clearly manifest. The 
Apostle affirms that even in that early age the mys- 
tery was beginning to work. This we have already 
found to be true of the Romish Church. His remain- 
ing statements await, and in the progress of our work, 
we trust, shall receive, an examination, proving them 
not only strikingly applicable to the Papacy, but appli- 
cable to no other system of error, religious or political ; 
to no other form of wickedness, personal, social or 
national. It should exalt itself above all that is called 
God, or that is worshipped, sitting in the temple of 
God, claiming to be God. This we shall hereafter find 
fulfilled in the arrogant assumptions of the proud 
pontiffs. Its coming should be "with all power and 
signs and lying wonders." Its relics, its legends, its 
prodigies and its so-called miracles, " lying wonders," 

57 



58 ROMANISM AN APOSTASY. 

will on examination be seen to be its most efficient 
agency in spreading and maintaining its soul-debasing 
superstitions. That God would send its followers 
strong delusion that they should believe a lie, Paul 
predicted. Most assuredly observation confirms the 
testimony of history, that in the Romish Church the 
willingness and power of the priests to deceive are 
only equalled by the capability and eagerness of the 
people to be deceived ; deceit producing deceivableness, 
deceivableness evoking deceit, blinded of God, given 
over to believe falsehoods. Of this, however, here- 
after. So likewise, the prediction that "the man of 
sin" should continue — not perhaps in organized form 
as now, but in essential characteristics — during the 
entire history of the Church on earth, and only be 
destroyed by the brightness of the Saviour's coming, is 
precisely the same, as hereafter will appear, with 
that so emphatically made respecting Romanism. In 
each, in all of the particulars here enumerated, the 
prophecy is exclusively applicable to the Church 
of Rome. This will appear in the course of our 
work. 

The first statement made respecting the " mystery of 
iniquity" is, that it should arise from apostasy. It 
was to be a falling away from the faith. We must 
therefore look for Antichrist among those who once 
embraced Christianity. In countries Christianized, or 
at least partially so, and not in those exclusively 
Pagan, must we expect " the man of sin." And unless 



ROMANISM AN APOSTASY. 59 

in the Papacy, where, in the entire history of the 
Church, does the prophecy find a fulfilment? 

If this be not the apostasy, where is it? Does 
Protestantism bear the marks ? Certainly one or the 
other is the predicted foe of Christ's kingdom. And 
if it be Protestantism, then Romanism, with all its 
abominations, must be all it claims to be, the Church, 
the only Church, the Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Church. 

The inquiry, therefore, which is the predicted " son 
of perdition ? " we are entirely willing should await 
the answer given this question, which form of doctrine 
and worship has the sanction of the Apostles and 
primitive Christians? confident that whilst before the 
beginning of the fourth century there was, as there 
always has been, and so long as human nature remains 
unchanged probably always will be, a strong tendency 
to ritualism, Popery — in the form in which it now 
exists and has cursed the world for nearly thirteen 
centuries — had no existence. 

During the lives of the Apostles, and in times im- 
mediately subsequent, the Church was comparatively 
pure. Believers worshipped God, and God alone, and 
relied for salvation entirely on the merit of Christ's 
death. The religion of the humble Nazarene had none 
of those unmeaning rites, imposing ceremonials, and 
debasing customs of Romanism. These all came in 
during the gradual apostasy, and came from Paganism. 
Prior to this the followers of Jesus were bitterly perse- 
cuted, thousands being put to death by every manner 



60 ROMANISM AN APOSTASY. 

of torture which fiendish malignity could invent. They 
were sawn asunder; they were drowned; they were 
thrown to wild beasts ; they w r ere burned at the stake. 
Others, covered with the skins of animals, were torn by 
dogs; others were crucified; others still, besmeared 
with combustible materials, and suspended by the chin 
upon sharp stakes, were set on fire, that they might 
light the gardens of Rome's cruel emperor. And to 
add interest to the horrid spectacle, and attract the 
crowd, this heartless exhibition of Satanic malignity 
was accompanied with horse-racing. 

To escape death, the faithful concealed themselves in 
dens, in caves, in deserts, and in subterranean burial 
places near the eternal city. During ten successive 
persecutions, Christianity retained its Apostolic purity. 
It was persecuted, and partly, no doubt, for this reason 
was the more spiritual. There was no vast external 
organization having the Pope at its head, and assuming 
spiritual power over the entire Church. The worship 
of images, counting of beads, bowing before altars, ador- 
ing the host and worshipping the Virgin, were unknown. 
Being poor, the Christians had few church edifices; 
they met for worship in caves and private houses. 
Magnificent cathedrals, gorgeous vestments, and costly 
ornaments, which Papists now seem to deem essential to 
proper worship, were at once impossible and unneces- 
sary to the simple-minded followers of him who had not 
where to lay his head. Theirs was not the form of 
godliness, but its power in the heart. Their writings 



ROMANISM AN APOSTASY. 61 

are of the most spiritual type. In these is found incon- 
trovertible proof that the religion then preached was 
such as we now denominate Protestantism. The Em- 
peror, so far from ruling in ecclesiastical matters, was 
the bitter enemy of Christianity. 

During this period each minister of the Church ruled 
in his own congregation, and nowhere else. The 
bishop of the church in Eome was only the equal, in 
authority, of the humblest shepherd of souls in the 
most unknown, distant and ignorant part of the empire. 
Clemens tells us, "Those who were ordained rulers in 
the churches, were so ordained with the approbation and 
concurrence of the whole Church." Clearly, therefore, 
Eomanism did not prevail. Her system is a despotism, 
in which the people have no voice in the choice of their 
spiritual guides. 

And the assumptions of Popery, like her mummeries, 
had no existence during the first three centuries. 
These the persecutions of Pagan Rome effectually re- 
pressed. Therefore, before "the man of sin" could be 
revealed, this let or hindrance must be removed. "And 
now," says Paul, " ye know what withholdeth that he 
might be revealed in his time. For the mystery of 
iniquity doth already work : only he who now letteth, 
will let, until he be taken out of the way. And then 
shall that Wicked be revealed." 

In the year, A. d. 306, Constantine succeeded to the 
throne of his father. This marks an important era in 
the history of the Church. Having seen, as he claimed, 



62 ROMANISM AN APOSTASY. 

the appearance of a cross in the heavens, exceeding 
bright, bearing the inscription, " Conquer by this," he 
embraced Christianity, defeated Maxentius, and in 313, 
by formal edict, confirmed and extended the privileges 
of the Christians. Christianity was now established. 
The Emperor commenced the persecution of Paganism. 
A profession of the Gospel being no longer accompanied 
with danger, the churches being richly endowed, the 
clergy loaded with honors, it was but natural that upon 
the pure spiritual worship of him who came to abolish 
all forms, should be engrafted the superstitions of the 
ignorant heathen. Of a conversion of the heart, there 
was not even the pretence. With the growth of ignor- 
ance and love of ostentation came, not only further 
importations of unmeaning ceremonies, but also greater 
assumptions on the part of Kome's bishop, until, in 
A. D. 606, the Emperor Phocas conferred upon Boniface 
III. the title of Universal Bishop. Thus Komanism, 
after a desperate struggle of three centuries, established 
itself. Henceforth none might, with impunity, despise 
its rites or ridicule its claims. 

It must not be supposed, however, that the Roman 
pontiffs acquired supremacy without long continued 
efforts, and persistent opposition from those who looked 
upon the growth of this power as the rise of Antichrist. 
Protests and refutations were numerous. Irenaeus declar- 
ed that the bishop of Rome was but a presbyter, for Jesus 
himself was the only bishop of souls. Maurus affirmed 
that all ministers were bishops, and all bishops were of 



^ROMANISM AN APOSTASY. 63 

equal rank. When summoned to Rome to stand trial 
for such blasphemous heresy, he paid no regard to the 
summons. When excommunicated he hurled back upon 
the Pope the sentence pronounced against himself, and 
continued, in defiance of the Pope's authority, to dis- 
charge duty as pastor of his flock. On his death-bed he 
exhorted his people to continuance in disowning the 
usurped power of the great Roman Antichrist. The 
early Councils resisted Papal supremacy. The sixth of 
Carthage (a. d. 418) resisted three Popes; that of 
Chalcedon (a. d. 450), Pope Leo. St. Ibar, the Irish 
divine, wrote, " We never acknowledge the supremacy of 
a foreigner" Says Theodoret, " Christ alone is head of 
all." In the early part of the sixth century a fierce 
contention arose " between Symmachus and Laurentius, 
who were on the same day elected to the pontificate by 
different parties." A Council assembled at Rome by 
Theodoric, king of the Goths, endorsed the election of 
the former. Ennodius, in an apology written for the 
Council and for Symmachus, first made the assertion, 
" The bishop of Rome is subject to no earthly tribunal." 
He styles him, " judge in place of God, and vicegerent 
of the Most High." These claims were maintained by 
the adherents of Symmachus, and detested and refuted 
by his opponents. Even Gregory, Pope, author and 
canonized saint — an authority surely with Papists — in 
his contest with the bishop of Constantinople, denounced 
the title of Universal bishop, as " vain" "diabolical " 
" anti-christian" "blasphemcnis" "execrable, ""infernal!' 



64 ROMANISM AN APOSTASY. 

He declares, " Our Lord says unto his disciples, be not 
ye called Rabbi, for one is your master, and all ye are 
brethren" And again he affirms, " Whosoever adopts 

OR AFFECTS THE TITLE OF UNIVERSAL BISHOP, HAS THE PRIDE 
OF ANTICHRIST, AND IS IN SOME MANNER HIS FORERUNNER 
IN HIS HAUGHTY QUALITY OF ELEVATING HIMSELF ABOVE THE 
REST OF HIS ORDER. AND INDEED, BOTH THE ONE AND 
THE OTHER SEEM TO SPLIT UPON THE SAME ROCK ; FOR AS 
PRIDE MAKES ANTICHRIST STRAIN HIS PRETENSIONS UP TO 
GODHEAD, SO WHOEVER IS AMBITIOUS TO BE CALLED THE 
ONLY AND UNIVERSAL BISHOP, ARROGATES TO HIMSELF A 
DISTINGUISHED SUPERIORITY, AND RISES, AS IT WERE, UPON 

the ruins of the rest." As the doctrine of Papal 
supremacy is so strongly condemned by an infallible 
Pope, surely we ought to be excused for disbelieving it. 
As the Papacy is declared, by what Komanists deem 
the highest human authority, to be either Antichrist or 
his harbinger, further proof that she is the great apos- 
tasy is certainly uncalled for. Infallibility has spoken, 
and for once, we can believe, has certainly spoken the 
truth. 

Two years after the death of Gregory, Boniface III. 
requested and obtained from the Emperor Phocas — the 
usurper and murderer — the title of Universal Bishop. 
This is the date commonly assigned as the origin of 
Popery. At this time the foundation stone of the 
entire structure was laid. Grant that the bishop of 
Borne is the legitimate successor of St. Peter, the pri- 
mate of the Church, " the infallible judge in faith and 



ROMANISM AN APOSTASY. 65 

morals," sole interpreter of Scripture, and the entire 
system is logically defensible. Even, however, so late 
as the ninth century, Lewis, son of Charlemagne, 
owned no supremacy in the Pope, but sustained the 
power of the bishops and Council against him. To 
bring men to consent to their arrogant assumptions, 
the pontiffs now devised a new scheme. They pro- 
cured, in the year 845, by the aid of their trusty 
friends, pretended decrees of early Popes, spurious 
writings of the fathers, and forged acts of synods and 
Councils, known since as the " Isidorian Decretals." 
The most important of these documents was the pre- 
tended gift from Constantine the Great, in the year 
324, of the city of Rome, and all Italy, with the crown, 
to Sylvester, then bishop of Rome. " We attribute," 
says the imposture, " to the chair of St. Peter all the 
imperial dignity, glory and power. Moreover, we 
give to Sylvester, and to his successors, our palace of 
Lateran — incontestably one of the finest palaces on 
earth ; we give him our crown, our mitre, our diadem, 

AND ALL OUR PRINCIPAL VESTMENTS ; WE RESIGN TO HIM 
THE IMPERIAL DIGNITY. . ... We GIVE AS 

A FREE GIFT TO THE HOLY PONTIFF THE CITY OF ROME, 
AND ALL THE WESTERN CITIES OF ITALY, AS WELL AS THE 
WESTERN CITIES OF THE OTHER COUNTRIES. To MAKE 
ROOM FOR HIM, WE ABDICATE OUR SOVEREIGNTY OVER 

all these provinces; and we withdraw from Rome, 
transferring the seat of our empire to Byzantium, since 

IT IS NOT JUST THAT A TERRESTRIAL EMPEROR SHALL 
5 



66 ROMANISM AN APOSTASY. 

RETAIL ANY POTTER WHERE GOD PLACED THE HEAD OF 
RELIGION." * 

By the aid of these base forgeries, approved by the 
Roman Pontiffs because designed to enrich the primacy 
of St. Peter, Nicolas I. succeeded, notwithstanding 
the determined opposition of the reflecting, in instilling 
into the minds of many the belief that the bishop of 
Rome was legislator and judge over the whole Church ; 
that other bishops, and even Councils, derived authority 
solely from him. Nor were the results which flowed 
from this huge fabrication confined to the ninth cen- 
tury. Gradually, but surely, the whole constitution 
and government of the Church were changed. Accord- 
ing to Mosheim, " The wisest and most impartial 
among the Roman Catholic writers, acknowledge and 
prove, that from the times of Lewis the Meek, the 
ancient system of ecclesiastical law in Europe was gene- 
rally changed, and a new system introduced by the 
policy of the court of Rome."f The authors of the 
recent work entitled, "Janus," "members of a school 
who yield to none in their loyal devotion to Catholic 
truth" affirm : " The Isidorian Decretals revolutionized 
the whole constitution of the Church, introducing a neiv 
system in the place of the old!' " Upon these" say they, 



* Of Constantine's pretended donation and the Decretals in general, 
Dr. Campbell remarks, " They are such bare-faced impostures, and 
so bunglingly executed, that nothing less than the most profound 
darkness of those ages could account for their success." 

f Mosheim, vol. ii. p. 63. 



ROMANISM AN APOSTASY. 67 

"was founded the maxim that the Pope, as supreme 
judge of the Church, could he judged by no man." It 
was on the strength of these fictions that Nicolas I. 
affirmed : " The Roman Church Jceeps the faith pure, 
and is free from stain." These authors, certainly com- 
petent authority, at least with Catholics, affirm : " Bel- 
larmine acknowledged that without the forgeries of the 
pseudo-Isidore, . it would be impossible to make 

out even a semblance of traditional evidence," for the 
supremacy. (P. 319.) 

As proving that Popery, as it now exists, is an 
apostasy from the true Church, we present some pas- 
sages from " Janus," that complete historical refutation 
of the Papal claim to supremacy and infallibility, which 
has recently caused the Catholic World and other pub- 
lications of the " infallibles " such immense trouble, 
and — to say nothing of misrepresentation — such -a vast 
amount of special pleading. They say : 

" The Papacy, such as it has become, presents the appearance 
of a disfiguring, sickly, and choking excrescence on the organiza- 
tion of the Church, hindering and decomposing the action of its 
vital powers, and bringing manifest diseases in its train." 

"The well known fact speaks clearly enough for itself, that 
throughout the whole ancient canon law . . . there is no men- 
tion made of Papal rights." 

" When the presidency in the Church became an empire . . . 
then the unity of the Church, so firmly secured before, was broken 
up." (P. 21.) 

" For a long time nothing was known in Rome of definite rights 
bequeathed by Peter to his successors." 



68 ROMANISM AN APOSTASY. 

" The Church of Rome could neither exclude individuals nor 
Churches from the Church Universal." (Pp. 64-66.) 

" There are many national Churches which were never under 
Rome, and never even had any intercourse with Rome." (P. 68.) 

" The Popes took no part in convoking Councils." (P. 63.) 

" The force and authority of the decisions of Councils depended 
upon the consent of the Church, and on the fact of being generally 
received." (Pp. 63, 64.) 

Thus, the sons of " Holy Mother " themselves being 
witnesses, we confidently affirm that Romanism, in its 
form of worship, in its system of doctrines, and in its 
plan of government, is evidently different from the 
primitive Church. It must, therefore, be " the mystery 
of iniquity" the great apostasy, " that man of sin" 
" the son of perdition, who opposeth and exalteth himself 
above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so 
that he, as God, sitteth in the temple of God, showing 
himself that he is God" 

The insolent ravings of this foe of the true Church, 
especially those of the last few months, may well strike 
us with amazement. Pope Boniface VIII. issued a 
decree, now embodied in the canon law, which sol- 
emnly proclaims : — " We declare, say, define, pro- 
nounce it to be of necessity to salvation, for every 
human creature to be subject to the Roman Pontiff." 
In the fourth canon of the " Dogmatic Decrees on Cath- 
olic Faith," promulgated in the third public session of 
the Vatican Council, April 24th, 1870, occur these 
words : " We admonish all that it is their duty to ob- 
serve likewise the constitutions and decrees of this 



ROMANISM AN APOSTASY. 69 

Holy See." In the third chapter of the " First Dog- 
matic Decree on the Church of Christ," passed July 
18th, 1870, it is affirmed : — " The decision of the Apos- 
tolic See, above which there is no higher authority, 
cannot be reconsidered by any one, nor is it lawful to 

any one to sit in judgment on Ms judgment We 

renew the definition of the (Ecumenical Council of 
Florence, according to which all the faithful of Christ 
must believe that the holy apostolic see and the Roman 
Pontiff hold the primacy over the whole world, and 
that the Roman Pontiff is the successor of blessed 
Peter, the prince of the Apostles, and the true Vicar 
of Christ, and is the head of the whole Church, and 
the father and teacher of all Christians." And in the 
fourth chapter of the same, we find this remarkable 
assertion, made in this nineteenth century 5 made after 
Rome has been again and again proved guilty of enter- 
taining not only doctrines evidently erroneous, but 
dogmas precisely contradictory — exact opposites : — 
" Knowing most certainly that this see of St. Peter 
ever remains FREE from error." Assertion seems their 
only stock in trade. With this as their formula, " Ubi 
Petrus, ibi ecclesia," and this as their sole argument, 
" Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my 
Church," they pronounce anathemas against all who 
deny, or even refuse cordially to accept, the doctrines 
of the supremacy and infallibility of the Pope. In this 
decree, the first on the Church, the unterrified Hve 
hundred thrice pronounce " anathema sit " against him 



70 ROMANISM AN APOSTASY. 

who shall presume to call in question the primacy of 
St. Peter or the legitimate succession of Pius IX., 
Holy Father, Vicar of Christ, Vicegerent of God, infalli- 
ble judge in faith and morals. 

The Komish Church, which now boastingly claims 
inerrancy, nay even infallibility, has taught errors in- 
numerable, has radically changed her ancient character 
and constitution, has become thoroughly corrupt in her 
centre of unity, has changed the forms of worship, has 
perverted the doctrines of the Gospel ; in a word, has, 
as Paul predicted, fallen away. 



CHAPTER V 



POPERY, PAGANISM. 




LTHOUGH the claim of the Pope to universal 
supremacy was not established until A. d. 606 
(and is even now vigorously disputed by many 
loyal sons of Holy Mother), the candid historian 
is nevertheless ready to admit that the superstition de- 
nominated by Paul " an apostasy," was, in all its chief 
features, distinctly visible prior to the arrogant assump- 
tions of Boniface III. He, in the office of supreme 
Pontiff, did little more than sanction existing rites and 
enforce uniformity. The errors in doctrine and practice 
which have since attained such importance, and pro- 
duced results so momentous, were most of them en- 
grafted upon Christianity during the three preceding 
centuries. Whence they came is easily determined. 
Paganism was their fruitful source. 

The motive which prompted to the introduction of 
these forms, adapting, as was supposed, the new reli- 
gion to the deep-seated prejudices of the heathen, may 
have been, nay, we may say, certainly was, praise- 
worthy. With the fervent desire of becoming all 
things to all men, that they might by all means save 

some, the early Christians, with the aid of imposing 

71 



72 POPERY, PAGANISM. 

ceremonies and magnificent rites borrowed from Pagan- 
ism, thought to win for Christ those who despised the 
simplicity of Christian worship. * 

This policy, laudable in motive, was, however, ex- 
ceedingly disastrous in its results. To purity of religion 
consequences the most pernicious ensued. Paganism 
began to supplant Christianity, leaving little save the 
name. The change in many doctrines and practices 
was indeed gradual — Rome boasts of her tardiness, 
deeming it wise deliberation — but on that account none 
the less real. Thus, the worship of images, though ex- 
tensively prevalent in the beginning of the fourth cen- 

* Gregory, in his instructions given to Augustine, missionary to 
Britain, says : "Whereas it is a custom among the Saxons to slay 
abundance of oxen, and sacrifice them to the devil, you must not 
abolish that custom, but appoint a new festival to be kept either on 
the day of the consecration of the churches, or the birth-day of the 
saints whose relics are deposited there, and on those days the Saxons 
may be allowed to make arbors round the temples changed into 
churches, to kill their oxen and to feast, as they did while they were 
Pagans, only they shall offer their thanks and praises, not to the 
devil, but to God." Says Mosheim : "This addition of external 
rites was also designed to remove the opprobrious calumnies which 
the Jewish and Pagan priests cast upon the Christians on account of 
the simplicity of their worship, esteeming them little better than athe- 
ists, because they had no temples, altars, victims, priests, nor any- 
thing of that external pomp in which the vulgar are so prone to place 
the essence of religion. The rulers of the Church adopted, therefore, 
certain external ceremonies, that thus they might captivate the senses 
of the vulgar and be able to refute the reproaches of their adversaries, 
thus obscuring the native lustre of the Gospel in order to extend its 
influence, and making it lose, in point of real excellence, what it 
gained in point of popular esteem." 



POPERY, PAGANISM. 73 

tiny, was not established till the ninth. The sacrifice 
of the mass — Rome's offering of human flesh — though 
originating about the middle of the fifth century, and 
almost universally believed in the ninth, being logically 
and compactly fitted into the system, an essential part 
thereof, was not erected into a dogma until the time of 
Pope Innocent III., at the fourth Council of the Late- 
ran, A. d. 1215. (Mosheim, III. chap. iii. part 2.) So 
likewise the invocation of saints, practised to some ex- 
tent in the middle of the third century, was without 
ecclesiastical sanction till the ninth. No less gradual 
was her adoption of the doctrine of purgatory, that relic 
of ancient heathenism. So likewise the use of lamps, 
candles, incense, holy water, and priestly robes, became 
universal only by silencing opposition continued through 
centuries. But the gradual importation of these cere- 
monies, and the slowness with which they grew into 
favor, in no way affect their heathen origin. That 
Romanism is Paganism perpetuated, we shall endeavor 
to prove. 

It was during the three centuries that elapsed be- 
tween the pretended conversion of Constantine and the 
pontificate of Boniface III. that most of Rome's customs 
and many of her doctrines were imported from heathen- 
ism. The religion of Jesus became a mere form, and 
not a life. Those who once, as idolaters, worshipped Ju- 
piter and the host of gods, afterward, while worship- 
ping the same images under the names of saints and 
martyrs, claimed to be Christians. As a necessary re- 



74 POPERY, PAGANISM. 

suit, the same ceremonies, in the main, prevailed in the 
churches of these so-called followers of Jesus as in the 
Pagan temples. At the door of the temple stood a vase 
of holy water, from which the people sprinkled them- 
selves. * How exactly has Rome copied this custom ! 
Go into any Romish chapel or cathedral, and you will 
find the vessel containing the consecrated water, and 
modern heathens crossing themselves. The very com- 
position of the water is the same, a mixture of salt with 
common water. 

One of the most ridiculous uses to which this water 
is applied, the sprinkling of horses, mules and asses, is, 
like all the other customs, borrowed from ancient 
Rome. On the Festival of St. Anthony, observed an- 
nually in the eternal city, the priest, dressed in sacer- 
dotal robes, after muttering some Latin words, intended 
as a charm against sickness, death, famine, and danger, 
sprinkles with a huge brush all the animals brought in 
from the surrounding country, blasphemously repeating, 
"In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Sancti Spiritus." St. 
Anthony, taking literally the command, " Preach the 
Gospel to every creature," concluded that the "Good 
Tidings " ought to be proclaimed to the inferior crea- 
tion, to birds, beasts, and fishes. Hence the Pope has 
in the Vatican a picture representing even fish as de- 
voutly listening, heads out of water, to a preaching 
friar! It is on the 1 7th of January that the festival 

* " The Amula was a vase of holy water, placed by the heathens at 
the door of their temples, to sprinkle themselves with." — Montfaucon. 




BLESSING ANIMALS. 



Page 75. 



. POPERY, PAGANISM. 75 

of this famous St. Anthony, patron of animals, is cele- 
brated. When this falls on Sabbath, great is the con- 
course, uproarious is the merriment, profitable indeed 
is the laughable farce : neighing horses, braying asses, 
bleating sheep, barking dogs, men, women, and children, 
each rivalling the other in loquacity, shouting priests, 
the rattling carriages of cardinals and nobles, and the 
clink of the fees as they drop into the sacred treasury, 
produce together a din that Pandemonium might envy,' 
possibly could equal, certainly could not surpass. The 
entire scene is one that would almost certainly prove 
fatal to an old Pagan philosopher, should he rise from 
his grave. A fit of laughter would speedily terminate 
his second existence. And this benediction in this 
nineteenth century! The wheel of progress must be 
moving backwards. The dark age must be the present, 
the midnight in Rome. And then to see an ass pulled 
by the tail to the door of the church to receive perforce 
St. Anthony's blessing, kicking and raising its solemn 
voice in earnest protest, and going home, tail straight 
out and head down, sighing, " Life is a failure." Well ! 
human nature, as it exists among Protestants, could 
endure only one such exhibition. 

Even Romanists themselves regard this sprinkling 
of animals as a Pagan custom, perfected by the touch 
of infallibility. The old Romans, say they, were accus- 
tomed to sprinkle the horses at the Circensian games. 
It guarded them, it was believed, against evil spirits 
and accidents in the race. " Once on a time," says a 



76 POPERY, PAGANISM. 

Catholic legend, " the horses of some Christians outran 
those of the heathen, because they were sprinkled with 
holy water." Therefore this custom ought to be per- 
petuated ; it has the sanction of God, the venerableness 
of antiquity, and was introduced by a saint, the great 
Anthony ! The following may be found over the ves- 
sels of holy water in the Church of S. Carlo Borromeo, 
in the Corso, at Eome : 

" Holy water possesses much usefulness when Christians sprinkle, 
themselves with it with due reverence and devotion. The Holy 
Church proposes it as a remedy and assistant in many circum- 
stances both spiritual and corporeal, but especially in these follow- 
ing: 

" Its Spiritual Usefulness. 

" 1. It drives away devils from places and from persons. 

" 2. It affords great assistance against fears and diabolical illusions. 

" 3. It cancels venial sins. 

" 4. It imparts strength to resist temptations and occasions to sin. 

" 5. It drives away wicked thoughts. 

" 6. It preserves safely from the passing snares of the devil, both 
internally and externally. 

" 7. It obtains the favor and presence of the Holy Ghost, by 
which the soul is consoled, rejoiced, and excited to devotion and 
disposed to prayer. 

" 8. It prepares the mind for a better attendance on the divine 
mysteries, and receiving piously and worthily the most Holy Sa- 
crament. 

" Its Corporeal Usefulness. 

"1. It is a remedy against barrenness in women and beasts. 
" 2. It is a preservation from sickness. 

" 3. It heals the infirmities both of the mind and of the body. 
" 4. It purifies infected air and drives away plague and con* 
tagion." 



POPERY, PAGANISM. 77 

Wonderful water ! 

Nor is the use of holy water their only conspicuous 
theft. Clouds of smoke, we are told, arose from the 
burning incense as the idol worshippers entered the 
temple.* This custom of using incense for religious 
purposes was so peculiarly pagan, and felt, both by 
Christians and their enemies, as so strikingly unbecom- 
ing those who worshipped the humble Nazarene, that 
the method most frequently adopted by the heathen 
persecutors of testing the fidelity of a Christian to his 
convictions was to order him to throw incense into the 
censer. If he refused, he was accounted a Christian ; 
if he threw even the least particle upon the altar, he 
was acquitted and classed among Pagans. In the 
churches of the great apostasy no one can fail to notice 
the use of perfumes. Often their cathedrals remain 
filled with the fumes of the incense for some considera- 
ble time after the services are concluded. 

Closer still is Rome's resemblance to Paganism. 
The heathen worshipper, on entering the temple, knelt 
before an idol and offered prayers. The devout papist, 
as he enters the church, often may be found kneeling 
before an image of the Virgin, praying, " holt Mart ! 
my Sovereign Queen, and most loving Mother ! re- 
ceive ME UNDER THY BLESSED PATRONAGE, AND SPECIAL 
PROTECTION, AND INTO THE BOSOM OF THY MERCY, THIS 
DAY, AND EVERY DAY, AND AT THE HOUR OF MY DEATH." f 

* u Thuricreinis cum dona imponerit Aris." — Virg. -ZEn. iv. 453. 
f "The Catholic Manual," p. 46. 



78 popery, paganism. 

" great, excellent, and most glorious lady, pros- 
trate at the foot of thy throne, we adore thee from 
this valley of tears."* " hail ! holy queen, 
mother of mercy, our life, our sweetness, and our 
hope ! to thee we cry, poor banished sons of eve, 
to thee we send our sighs, mourning and weeping in 
this valley of tears. turn then, most gracious 
advocate ! thy eyes of mercy towards us." f 
" Holy Mother of our God ! 
To thee for help we fly ; 
Despise not this our humble prayer, 
But all our wants supply." % 

Were the most degraded of the heathen ever guilty 
of idolatry grosser than this ? 

That they might clearly evidence the heathen origin 
of their customs, particulars seemingly the most insig- 
nificant were not allowed to pass into disuse. Even 
the arrangement of images in rows around the temple, 
the most highly prized standing alone in the most con- 
spicuous place, has been slavishly copied, not only in 
centuries past, but in this late age. Nay, even the 
priest, dressed in robes apparently after the very pat- 
tern of those that decked the priests of ancient Rome, 
and attended, like his predecessors, by a boy in white, 
swings his pot of incense precisely as an old heathen in 
Homer's time may be presumed to have done. 

Laboriously endeavoring to exhaust the Pagan ritual, 

* " The Glories of Mary," Amer. Ed., p. 513, etc. 
f "The Catholic Manual," p. 222. % Idem, p. 433. 



POPERY, PAGANISM. 79 

candles are kept burning before each altar and idol * 
In the churches of Italy they hang up lamps at every 
altar, says Mabillon. The Egyptians, says Herodotus, 
first introduced the use of lamps in worship. Rollin 
says (vol. i., pt. 2, ch. 2), "A festival surnamed the 
Feast of Lights, was solemnized at Sais. All persons 
throughout all Egypt, who did not go to Sais, were 
obliged to illuminate their windows." So strikingly 
conspicuous was this part of the heathen worship, that 
the early Christians tauntingly said of their foes — 
" They light up candles to God as if he lived in the 
dark, . . . offering lamps to the Author and Giver of 
Light." 

Even the fiction of Purgatory, of which Gregory the 
Great has generally been represented by Papists as 
creator, and which has ever proved a source of immense 
wealth to the Pope and the clergy, is evidently an im- 
portation from Paganism. Like most of the other cus- 
toms of the man of sin, it came in soon after Constan- 
tine's pretended conversion, when Christianity became 
fashionable, and to men ambitious of distinction at the 
court, extremely profitable. Unknown to the Christian 
Church during the first five centuries, it was, however, 
well known in the heathen world even so early as 
Homer s time. It is the old fire purification of souls ; 
and the ceremonies now employed for the relief of those 
suffering the tormenting flames are remarkably similar 
to those anciently employed by Pagan priests.f In 



* Virgil, "iEneid," iv. 200. f "Odyssey," xii., and "^neid," vi. 



80 POPERY, PAGANISM. 

fact the doctrine was so purely heathen, that not even 
Popish ingenuity could invent even an argument in its 
favor. Hence the Jesuit Cottonus, failing to find a 
passage in Scripture that would infallibly confirm it, 
implored the devil to assist him. For once even Satan 
himself was unable to wrest Scripture to his purpose. 
But, notwithstanding the small, the exceedingly unim- 
portant consideration that no proof, except visions and 
dreams and assertion, was found, the Popes were able 
in the end to establish infallibly everything connected 
with purgatorial fires, and locate them at the earth's 
centre, 18,300 1 miles below the surface. Infallibility 
don't need to know geography ! 

Their custom of invoking the dead is of heathen 
origin. The true Church of God never offered prayers 
to deceased mortals. The ancient Eomans, however, 
deified their great men, and sought blessings from 
them. And the Papists, imitating their example, 
canonize those whom they honor during life, offer in- 
cense to them, bow before them and supplicate their 
assistance. Thus in " The Litany of Saints," found in 
" The Catholic Manual," their ordinary book of prayer, 
we find these petitions : 



St. Stephen ! 

St. Laurence ! 

St. Vincent! 

St. Fabian, and St. Sebastian ! 

St. John, and St. Paul ! 

St. Cosmas, and St. Damian ! 



i 



*3> 



. POPERY, PAGANISM. 81 

St. Gervase, and St. Protase ! 

All ye holy Martyrs ! 

St. Sylvester! 

St. Gregory ! 

St. Ambrose ! 

St. Augustin ! 

St. Jerom ! 

St. Martin ! 

St. Nicholas ! 

All ye holy Bishops and Confessors ! 

All ye holy Doctors ! 

St. Anthony ! 

St. Bennet! 

St. Bernard ! 

St. Dominick ! 

St. Francis ! 

All ye holy Priests, and Levites ! 

All ye holy Monks, and Hermits! 

St. Mary Magdalen ! 

St. Agatha! 

St. Lucy! 

St. Agnes ! 

St. Cecily ! (etc. for two more pages ! ) Make inter- 
cession for us ! 

And from the Freeman's Journal (Sept. 24, 1870) 
we learn that the Archbishop of Cincinnati, in' an ad- 
dress delivered at the ceremonies attending the deposit- 
ing of relics in the convent of the St. Franciscan Sisters 
(Cincinnati), piously exhorted all devout Catholics to 
ask the mediation of St. Aureliana. The mortal 
remains of this saint, after sixteen centuries' quiet rest, 
were taken (a chance to exercise faith), from the Cata- 
6 



82 POPERY, PAGANISM. 

combs of Rome, artistically incased in wax, transported 
across the Atlantic, and now rest, the object of devout 
veneration, in the metropolis of the West ! This re- 
markable relic is the fruit of the indomitable persever- 
ance of Mrs. Sarah Peters, the zealous convert whose 
untiring zeal was rewarded with the rare and blessed 
privilege of hearing mass said by Pope Pio Nono at the 
grave of St. Peter, beneath St. Peter's, Rome. The 
tasteful correspondent of the paper, now so zealously 
engaged in raising Peters pence for "the infallible 
judge in faith and morals, the bishop of the Universal 
Church," says, " The figure as it lay would have been 
exquisite, had it not been marred by the ugly gash in 
the throat, and an appearance of wounds on the hands 
and feet, caused by pieces of the bones which were en- 
cased, being set in the white wax for the better venera- 
tion of the faithful." Great indeed must be the faith 
which prompts persons, of even the least common sense, 
to venerate as the remains of the " virgin martyr of the 
proud and royal Aurelian family," a wax figure, with a 
ghastly gash in the throat, and the bones sticking out ! 
And what must be the superstition which leads to the 
invocation of this resurrected saint ! We live in the 
year 1871, and boast of the world's progress ! 

This idolatrous custom no doubt originated in vene- 
ration paid to departed worthies. Those, however, 
who so far conformed to heathen practices, soon offered 
worship to the creature. So universal became this 
superstition that even the ancient temple, sacred to 



POPER Y, PA GANIS3L 83 

Romulus, where infants were presented by their Pagan 
mothers to be cured of diseases, was consecrated to a 
Roman saint, Theodorus, to whom Catholic mothers 
present their sick children for healing. Nay, even the 
Pantheon, house of all the gods, the most celebrated 
heathen temple of antiquity, was rededicated by Pope 
Boniface IV. " to the blessed Virgin and all the saints." 
And to this day, with the gods of old Rome bearing 
the names of Popish saints, the old Pagan worship, in 
all its essential features, is continued. There the 
traveller from every Catholic country may find his 
patron saint, and worship at his altar. And as with 
the Pantheon so with the other heathen temples ; with 
the same ceremonies they worship the same idols under 
new names. Diana, Juno, Ceres, and Venus became 
the Virgin under different titles. Bacchus became St. 
Joseph. Orpheus and Apollo were regarded as types 
of Christ. Even the same festivals were perpetuated 
under new names, and consecrated to the commemora- 
tion of Christian anniversaries. The Liberalia were 
made to yield to the festival of St. Joseph, the ceremo- 
nies being slightly changed. The Palilia were retained 
as a festival in honor of St. John. The feast of St. 
Peter ad Vincula superseded the festival commemora- 
tive of Augustus' victory at Actium. The Floralia, 
when the streets were strewn with flowers arranged in 
fantastic forms, were devoted to Our Lady. Even the 
wild festivities of the Saturnalia were in some measure 
retained in the excesses which were allowed at Christ- 



84 POPERY, PAGANISM. 

mas and Epiphany. The Cerealia, in honor of Ceres, 
the goddess of corn, were transformed into the visita- 
tion of the Virgin — the processions of women and vir- 
gins, in white robes, vowing chastity and strewing their 
beds with " agnus castus " being retained. In conse- 
quence of the vast increase in the number of saints, the 
list of heathen festivals was exhausted, so in A. d. 835, 
Gregory IV. established the feast of all saints. 

A recent traveller to Rome says : — " You frequently 
see persons prostrate before images, and in a state of 
the greatest apparent devotion, even if these images are 
formed out of materials taken from heathen temples. 
At Pisa I saw several females prostrate before the 
statues of Adam and Eve, which are exhibited in a 
state of almost entire nudity. The celebrated statue 
of St. Peter, in the Church of St. Peter's at Rome, the 
toe of which is almost literally kissed away, was origi- 
nally a statue of Jupiter, taken from the capitol. Many 
of the altars and ornaments in the churches, are entirely 
heathen in their origin and appearance. Naked forms 
in marble abound in all the churches. Many of the 
vases used for baptismal purposes, and those containing 
the Holy Water, were anciently used for similar pur- 
poses in the days of heathenism." 

Such unseemly haste has characterized Rome's pro- 
pensity to manufacture saints, that some ridiculous 
mistakes have occured. Thus, they have canonized 
Julia Evodia, a heathen, respecting whom nothing is 
known except that she erected a tombstone to her hea- 



POPERY, PAGANISM. 85 

then mother. They have, by the power of the keys, 
infallibly converted a mountain into a saint, Mount 
Soracte, becoming S. Oracte, St. Oreste. They have 
also a St. Viar, manufactured by a procrustean process 
from PrefectuS VIARum, overseer of roads ; a sainted 
cloak, and a sainted handkerchief. In honor of the 
last-mentioned saint, whose surface bears an impression 
of the Saviour's face, a true image, made as he wiped 
his face at the execution, Pope John XXII. composed 
a prayer as follows : — " Hail holy face of our Re- 
deemer, PRINTED UPON A CLOTH AS WHITE AS SNOW ; PURGE 
US FROM ALL SPOT OF VICE, AND JOIN US TO THE COMPANY 
OF THE BLESSED. BRING US TO OUR COUNTRY, HAPPY 

Figure, there to see the pure face of Christ." * This 
sacred relic— preserved in St. Peter's, where is an altar 
erected by Pope Urban VIII. to the honor of Veronica, 
"vera icon," the true image — grants, according to Pope 
Innocent III., ten days' indulgence to all who visit 
it. Shades of Paganism, did ever superstition equal 
that! "His Infallibility," Pope Pius IX., certainly 
deserves commiseration. To be the rock which shall 
support this mighty fabric of baptized Paganism, must 
be an oppressive life ! 

And to make the resemblance to heathenism com- 
plete in everything pertaining to saints, " Holy Mo- 
ther" earnestly recommends every Catholic to select 
some particular saint as a protecting divinity, a patron, 



* Bower's "Lives of the Popes." — Life of Innocent III. 



86 POPERY, PAGANISM. 

Thus, in a " Catechism and Instructions " designed for 
very small children by M. C. Kavanagh, and having 
the unqualified commendation of one of Rome's most 
honored Archbishops, occurs this pious advice, " You 
should never he without some object of piety, such as a 
Crucifix, picture of Our Lady, your good Angel, or' 
Patron Saint, in your bedroom" Anciently, every Ro- 
man family had its penates, its household gods, a neces- 
sary appendage to every dwelling. 

Their priestly power is an imitation of Pagan spiritual 
despotism. In the true Church, " all are kings and 
priests unto God." Even the most humble, unknown, 
ignorant, and even sinful creature, " may come boldly 
unto the throne of grace." But the Papal priests, ser- 
vile copyists of the heathen, tyrannize over the souls 
of men, and claim the right to stand between the peni- 
tent sinner and his Saviour. All the blessings which 
he desires, and so much needs, must come through the 
good-will and efficacious services of priests. And these, 
forgetting that he who would Serve God acceptably in the 
ministry of the Gospel, must be " least of all" and " ser- 
vant of all," are too often proud, insolent, tyrannical. 

Their processions are of heathen origin. The ancient 
Romans, on set days, paraded, bearing lighted candles 
and carrying idols dressed in costly clothing. At these 
solemnities priests were assisted by the magistrates in 
ceremonial robes. The youth, gaudily dressed, followed, 
singing songs in honor of the god whose festival they 
were celebrating. Most slavishly has this custom been 



POPERY, PAGANISM. 87 

copied in Roman Catholic countries. At the festival 
of the Holy Virgin, or some other Romish saint, the 
priests, magistrates, and even ladies and mere boys, 
with lighted wax candles in their hands, form in 
solemn procession, bearing images, and chanting hymns. 
A traveller to Rome thus describes the festival of the 
Annunciation: — " Processions of penitents are seen 
silently wending their way along the streets, clothed 
in long black robes, preceded by a black cross, and 
bearing in their hands skulls and bones, and contribu- 
tion-boxes for souls in purgatory. . . . The Pope him- 
self was clothed in robes of white and silver, and as he 
passed along the crowds of gazing people that lined the 
streets and filled the windows, he forgot not incessantly 
to repeat his benediction — a twirl of three fingers, typi- 
cal of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost — the little finger 
representing the latter. Many tiresome ceremonies 
followed his entry into the church. He was seated on 
his throne ; all the Cardinals successively approached — 
kissed his hand — retired a step or two — gave three low 
bows — one to him in front, as personifying God the 
Father, one to the right, intended for the Son, and one 
to the left for the Holy Ghost." Most powerfully do 
such scenes remind us of the pompous ceremonies of 
ancient Paganism ; we seem standing in the midst of 
some heathen city of the ages past, and witnessing 
their grotesquely solemn superstitions. 

The title of Pontifex Maximus is conspicuously a 
theft from ancient Rome. All good Papists are stanch 



88 POPERY, PAGANISM. 

advocates of the Pope's supremacy. They consider him 
the Yicar of Christ, infallible Head of the Church, 
fountain of all holiness, source of all spiritual blessings, 
successor to St. Peter. Admitting that Peter was in 
Rome, and was bishop of the entire Church — which no 
Papist has ever yet successfully proved — the fact is yet 
undeniable that the name, the office, the authority, 
and the functions of the Pope are precisely the same 
as those of the chiefest pontiff in Pagan Rome. 
The worldly pomp and splendor that now surround 
the Papal court, comporting so poorly with what we 
know of the poverty, self-denial, and simple manners 
of the ardent, impetuous Apostle, point unmistakably 
to the Pontifex Maximus of old Rome. He, like his 
servile imitators, claimed to be the arbiter of all cases, 
civil and sacred, human and divine. If loyal Roman- 
ists, therefore, would say that the present Pope is the 
legitimate successor of the lordly pontiff who, even 
when Christ was a babe in Bethlehem, could claim 
regular succession from pontiffs dating backwards for 
centuries, they would tell the truth for once, and might 
add fresh laurels to their boasted claim of antiquity. 

The votive offerings so frequently made in Catholic 
churches are an imitation of a custom practised in Rome 
long prior to the Christian era. Nothing was more 
common than votive gifts presented to the gods in con- 
sequence of vows taken in times of danger, or for some 
supposed miraculous deliverance. Of this the authors 
of Greece and Rome make frequent mention. Even 



POPERY, PAGANISM. 89 

this means of fostering superstition did not escape Ko- 
mish observation. It was early incorporated into the 
scheme of Popish worship. Around the shrines of the 
saints are hung, in almost countless number, these 
votive offerings, evidences at once of the grossest super- 
stition and of the most servile imitation of Pagan prac- 
tices. A correspondent of a secular paper, writing 
recently from Paris, gives an animated description of 
a scene witnessed in one of the Cathedrals of the 
French capital on the reception of news by mail from 
MacMahon's defeated army. Wives, sisters, lovers, 
were seen presenting their gifts to Our Lady — thanks- 
giving offerings for the deliverance of their loved ones ; 
others, hanging up their gifts, knelt and tearfully im- 
plored the protection of the Mother of God for the 
exposed, the wounded, the suffering, the dying. Marble 
tablets, about eight inches by four, graven with senti- 
ments such as these, " In humble thankfulness for the 
return of my beloved husband from the war," " Honor 
to Our Lady for her merciful deliverance," " In acknow- 
ledgment of the prayer Our Lady answered," covered all 
the walls and even the pillars overhead, so that the 
entire church of Our Lady of Victory was literally lined 
with these records of gratitude. To make the heathen 
scene complete, there were lighted candles and pic- 
tures, officiating priests in gaudy vestments, and a 
glittering altar loaded with ornaments and votive 
offerings. 

The sacrifice of the mass is a conformity to Paganism 



90 POFERY, PAGANISM. 

as disgusting as it is slavishly accurate. Christians 
have always believed that Christ's death is an all-suffi- 
cient sacrifice for sin, and has forever done away with 
the necessity and propriety of any other. " For by one 
offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanc- 
tified." "The blood of Jesus Christ cleanse th from all 
sin." Popery, however, like Paganism, dishonors this 
one perfect sacrifice, by substituting others in its stead. 
It is indeed true that Papists do not offer the blood of 
bulls and goats ; they offer, however, what is far less 
reasonable and more grossly superstitious, A coxsecrated 
wafer, particles of bread, transubstantiated, by the 
magic words of the priest, into the " actual body, blood, 
soul and divinity of Christ ;" into " his bones, nerves, 
muscles/' and the wine into "his real blood, which 
floioed in his veins." If priest and people really believe 
what they so repeatedly affirm they believe, then are 
they among the most degraded of heathen worshippers — 
offering human flesh on their cdtars, eating human flesh 
and drinking human blood. Either, then, human sac- 
rifices are perpetuated, and that, too, in the most shock- 
ing, most revolting form, or infallibility errs. Either 
the priest creates a god, offers him as a sacrifice for sin, 
and ends in eating him, or all Papists worship flour 
and water. There is the dilemma ! Romanists, choose 
which horn you please. 

But even heathen, in their wildest vagaries, never 
clung to customs so repugnant to common sense as 
many that grow out of the doctrine of transubstan- 



POPERY, PAGANISM. 91 

tiation. For example, the priest, holding a wafer be- 
tween his thumb and the forefinger of his right hand, 
says : " Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the 
sin of the world," which he thrice repeats, then lays 
one wafer upon the tongue of each communicant. In 
winter, the wafers are consecrated twice a month, in 
summer, once a week. Consecration is oftener in sum- 
mer than in winter, because the host, by the excessive 
heat, corrupts, producing worms ! A god turned to 
worms!! It is an injunction of Holy Mother, how- 
ever, that this corrupted host must be eaten. It is 
still " the body, blood, soul and divinity of Christ." 
Again : " If in winter the blood be frozen in the cup, 
put warm cloths about the cup ; if that will not do, let 
it be put into boiling water near the altar, till it be 
melted, taking care it does not get into the cup." A 
god frozen and warmed with bandages or boiling water! ! 
Surely, men have lost their reason ! Heathen were 
never so devoid of common sense. Worse still : " If 
any of the blood of Christ fall upon the ground by neg- 
ligence, it must be licked up with the tongue, the place 
be sufficiently scraped, and the scrapings burned ; but 
the ashes must be buried in holy ground."* "If after 
consecration a gnat or spider, or any such thing, fall 
into the chalice, let the priest swallow it with the 
blood, if he can ; but if he fear danger, and have a 
loathing, let him take it out and wash it with wine, 

* "Roman Missal," p. 53, etc. — Respecting Defects occurring in 
the Mass. 



92 POPERY, PAGANISM. 

and when mass is ended, burn it and cast it and the 
washing into holy ground." * It was solemnly declared 
by a reverend father, seconded by several friars, that 
a dog, which had accidentally caught and eaten the 
falling wafer, should be henceforth called " the sacra- 
ment dog ;" that when he died he should be buried in 
consecrated ground, that he must not be allowed to 
play with other dogs, and that the woman who owned 
him must place a silver dog on the tabernacle where 
the host was deposited, and pay a sum of money to the 
church. Surely Popery lias out-paganized Paganism 
itself. 

Nothing is more evident than that asceticism, which 
is manifestly opposed to the whole spirit of the Bible, 
is of Pagan origin. It is a vain attempt to work out 
salvation by severe self-denial, by withdrawing from 
the abodes of men and the customary pursuits of life, 
and undergoing penance with the hope that God is 
well pleased with those who render miserable the life 
he gave them. The Eremites of the heathen, especi- 
ally those of Egypt, the Essenes and the TherapeutaB, 
retiring from the world and all useful occupations, 
vowing chastity, poverty and obedience, clothing them- 
selves in skins or the coarsest materials, dwelling in 
caverns, practising tortures, sometimes even scourging 
themselves with whips, and passing much of their time 
in silent contemplation, were accustomed to travel from 

* "Roman Missal," p. 53, etc. — Respecting Defects occurring in 
the Mass. 



POPERY, PAGANISM. 93 

house to house, with sacks upon their backs, begging 
bread, wine, and all kinds of victuals for the support 
of their lazy fraternities. Precisely the same customs 
prevail even now in India and Siam, handed down 
from the same source, Egypt, the fruitful parent of so 
many gloomy misanthropes. Hordes of mendicant 
priests, claiming superior sanctity, feed on the people, 
consuming the fruits of honest industry, and returning 
no equivalent. After these heathen models, Kome's 
religious orders of monks and nuns, in their almost 
endless variety, were unquestionably formed, and that 
too by the most raving fanatics. These orders have 
precisely the same vows — chastity, poverty and obedi- 
ence. They retire into monasteries, nunneries, deserts, 
or caves, spend their time in filth or useless reverie and 
idleness ; clothe themselves in rags and wretchedness, 
or in garments powerfully reminding one of their 
heathen prototypes, and practise severe self-inflicted 
tortures. So likewise celibacy, so vaunted in the Ro- 
mish Church, and abstinence from animal food, are 
among the austerities recommended by Pagans centu- 
ries before the Christian era. 

That no feature, at least no important feature, of 
Paganism might be allowed to fall into oblivion, Rome 
can boast of her sect, the legitimate successors of the 
Gymnosophists of Egypt, which claims that the per- 
fection of piety consists in an annihilation of every 
affection implanted in human nature, including even 
love of one's parents, which, to any but a heathen, 



94 POPERY, PAGANISM. 

might reasonably be presumed to be innocent. Those 
voluntarily choosing a hermit life — thus casting slander 
on the God that made them, and more frequently fall- 
ing into gross sins than those preferring to remain in 
society, and there attempt to live worthy of him whose 
life was spent in labors of love with the multitude — 
became at one time so numerous in the infallible Church, 
that in Egypt alone their number was little less than 
100,000. In one city, Oxyrinthus, there were 20,000 
virgins and 10,000 monks. To find from 7000 to. 
10,000 lazy monks under the superintendence of one 
abbot was by no means unusual. 

And even the self-whipping, copied from the 
priests of Isis, Papists have retained. True, the sect 
of the Flagellantes no longer exists, but then in the 
eternal city, during the season of Lent, fleshly disci- 
pline is still practised. Only a short time since, in one 
of the churches of Rome, after a brief season of prayer, 
the candles being extinguished, a company of the faith- 
ful, for the space of an hour, sacredly devoted them- 
selves to the use of the consecrated whip — either upon 
their backs or upon the benches. Seneca, referring to 
this same custom in Pagan Rome, says : " If there be 
any gods that desire to be worshipped after this manner, 
they do not deserve to be worshipped at all ; since the 
very worst of tyrants, though they have sometimes 
torn and tormented people, yet have never commanded 
men to torture themselves." And the Emperor Corn- 
modus, shrewd old Pagan as he was, being opposed to 



POPERY, PAGANISM. 95 

people wearing unearned laurels, ordered these self- 
whippers " to lash themselves in good earnest, and x not 
feign it merely and impose upon the people." 

Even so trifling a circumstance as kissing the Pope's 
toe is borrowed from the heathen Emperor and tyrant, 
Caligula. When first the pontifical toe of the old 
pagan was introduced to the public, it aroused a violent 
storm of indignation, being taken as the greatest possi- 
ble insult to freedom. Now, however, in Christian 
Rome, it scarcely ruffles the serenity of even the proud- 
est and most honored Papist. It is the condition of 
access into the awe-inspiring presence of "Our Lord 
God the Pope, infallible judge in faith and morals." 
And as he is the legitimate successor of the lordly pon- 
tiff who was conducted to the castle of Toici, in France, 
by two kings, one walking on either side of his horse, 
and holding the bridle rein ; and of Gregory VII., who 
compelled the Emperor Henry IV. to remain three full 
days at his palace gate, barefoot and fasting, humbly 
suing for admittance, it would be too cruel to deny the 
Holy Father of all Christendom the small honor of 
having the faithful kiss his jewelled slipper. 

Instead of tracing the remaining characteristic feat- 
ures of Romanism back to their heathen origin, we must 
content ourselves with bringing forward a few author- 
ities substantiating the position that Popery is perpetu- 
ated Paganism. The first shall be Dean Waddington. 
" The copious transfusion of heathen ceremonies into 
Christian worship, which had taken place before the 



96 POPERY, PAGANISM. 

end of the fourth century, had, to a certain extent, 
Paganized (if we may so express it) the outward form 
and aspect of religion, and these ceremonies became 
more general and more numerous, and, so far as the 
calamities of the times would permit, more splendid in 
the age which followed. To console the convert for the 
loss of his favorite festival, others of a different name, 
but similar description, were introduced ; and the sim- 
ple and serious occupation of spiritual devotion was 
beginning to degenerate into a worship of parade and 
demonstration, or a mere scene of riotous festivity." 

Aringhus, a Koman Catholic witer, acknowledging 
the conformity between Pagan and Popish rites, ex- 
plains and defends it as follows : — " The Popes found it 
necessary, in the conversion of the Gentiles, to dissemble 
and wink at many things and yield to the times, and 
not to use force against customs which the people are so 
obstinately fond of, nor to think of extirpating at once 
everything that had the appearance of profane." 

Dr. Middieton, in his letters from Rome, to which we 
acknowledge ourselves indebted for many of the above- 
mentioned facts, affirms : — "All their ceremonies appear 
plainly to have been copied from the rituals of primitive 
Paganism; as if handed down by an uninterrupted 
succession from the priests of old, to the priests of new 
Rome." After carrying out the comparison to an 
extent which would be wearisome were it not so deeply 
interesting, he employs this language : — " I could easily 
carry on this parallel, through many more instances of 



POPERY, PAGANISM. 97 

the Pagan and Popish ceremonies, to show from what 
spring all that superstition flows, which we so justly 
charge them with, and how vain an attempt it must be 
to justify by the principles of Christianity a worship 
formed upon the plan and after the very pattern of pure 
heathenism." 

Considering the evidence we are able to present of 
the strikingly accurate conformity of modern Popery to 
ancient Paganism, who is not ready to believe that if 
Cicero should rise from his grave in the Campus Martius, 
and wandering through Eome should enter St. Peter's, 
he would certainly imagine that the successors of the 
old priests, in scarcely a circumstance changed, were, 
with the same fopperies, which in the times of the 
Caesars excited the ridicule of the learned, worshipping 
Diana, or Yenus, or Apollo ? 

If, as we believe has been successfully proved, modern 
Romanism is only the Paganism of Antechristian times 
perpetuated, then we may expect to find it bearing a 
close affinity to Buddhism, the oldest known religion of 
the Indo-European race. For unless Dwight and Max 
Muller, and in fact all philologists are incorrect in their 
oft-repeated declaration that India and Greece and 
Rome were peopled by kindred tribes, speaking cognate 
languages and having essentially the same religion, 
then is modern Popery the same as Buddhism of the 
present day, barring only the slight changes that have 
occurred since the separation. And as each prides 
7 



98 POPERY, PAGANISM. 

itself in veneration of the past, in inerrancy and im- 
mutability, these may be presumed to be few. 

That Bomanism is indeed the twin sister of the 
Buddhist religion none surely can deny. A comparison 
of the two will force conviction upon even the most 
incredulous. Antedating Christianity by several cen- 
turies, and spreading over all the countries inhabited 
by what are now known as the Indo-European races, 
Buddhism has ever had, and now has, precisely those 
features which mark the Papal Church, consisting 
partly of maxims of morality and partly of dogmas of 
faith on subjects transcending the reach of reason, it 
rests conjointly on the authority of certain sacred books 
and the decisions of early councils — called, like Rome's, 
oecumenical, and blindly venerated. The worshippers 
of Buddha in Burmah, Siam, and the Chinese Empire — 
numbering more than the adherents of any other relig- 
ious system known in either ancient or modern times — 
have their relics and their images, the objects of supreme 
veneration; their temples costing fabulous sums of 
money ; their saints canonized by ecclesiastical author- 
ity ; their priests with shaven heads, vowing chastity, 
poverty and obedience; their wax candles burning 
night and day; their penances and self-inflicted tor- 
tures ; their endless traditions, and hair-splitting moral 
distinctions; and even their confessional. They have 
also their Lent, when for four or five weeks all the 
people are supposed to live on vegetables and fruits ; 
their acts of merit, repetition of prayers, fasting, offer- 



POPERY, PAGANISM. 99 

ings to the images, celibacy, voluntary poverty, en- 
forced devotions, and munificent gifts to temples, 
monasteries and idols. Even the rosary, a string of 
beads used in saying prayers, and supposed by Papists 
to be a device specially revealed to St. Dominic, is part 
of the sacred machinery of the devout Buddhist. And 
their monasteries, into which priests retire from the 
world, and engage in the instruction of the young, 
especially in the mysteries of their sacred books, almost 
startle one by their close resemblance to those of Popery. 
And to see the worshippers of Buddha, each with a 
rosary in his hand, prostrate themselves before an 
image and repeat their prayers, whilst priests in gaudy 
vestments, bowing before lighted candles, mutter their 
incantations in a language which has long since ceased 
to be spoken, forces upon even the least reflecting the 
conviction that though Eome has ever claimed the 
power of working miracles, she has shown little inven- 
tive genius. Not even are shrines and sacred places a 
monopoly with Rome. There are plenty of them, and 
pilgrims too, in India. And why not, since they have 
their preaching friars, spending their time alternatively 
in sacred oratory and in begging. Nay, even modern 
miracles, though by no means so numerous, and cer- 
tainly not so astounding, are performed by Rome's elder 
sister. And to complete the picture, they have their 
infallible pontiff. At Lhassa, as well as at Rome, dwells 
one whom the faithful make believe cannot err when 
speaking ex cathedra. With two infallibles, one in 



100 POPERY, PAGANISM. 

Asia and one in Europe, the world certainly ought not 
to err in faith and morals. And then, like the Roman- 
ist and the ancient Egyptian, the learned Buddhist 
indignantly repels the charge of idolatry, affirming that 
he only employs idols as a visible image of the invisible 
Buddha, an aid in spiritual worship. Alike in most 
things, and antedated only in one, infallibility, Rome 
is, as yet, ahead in the mad chase after superstition. 
Buddhism has no indulgences, no purgatory, no living 
Eucharist, that is, human sacrifices: — Paganism has 
been outstripped. 



PART II. 

Popery essentially hostile to Christianity. 




CHAPTER I. 

ARROGANCE. 
(2 Thess. ii. 4.) 

AVING proved — we trust to the satisfaction of 
unprejudiced minds — that Romanism is the pre- 
dicted foe of Christ's kingdom, the mystery of 
iniquity that even in the Apostles' time was 
beginning to work, the great apostasy, baptized Pagan- 
ism, it remains for us to show that she is, in spirit, 
doctrine and practice, hostile to the true Church of 
Christ ; that in her leading characteristics she is neces- 
sarily antagonistic to Christianity, nor less so in this 
enlightened nineteenth century, than in the world's 
midnight, Rome's golden age ; that her changes have 
most of them been for the worse, towards grosser 
superstition, greater pride, and more absurd dogmas. 

In Paul's glowing description of the rise of Anti- 
christ, occur these remarkable words : " Wlio opposeth 
and exaltetli himself above all that is called God, or that 
is worshipped; so that he, as God, sitteth in the temple of 
God, showing himself that he is God!' No arrogance 
that the world has ever witnessed can compare with 
that of the Papal Church. It claims not only immu- 
tability but also inerrancy, not merely the right to 

103 



104 ARROGANCE. 

bind the conscience and destroy the body, but even to 
damn the soul. It boastingly proclaims itself able to 
work miracles, to forgive sins, and to create the world's 
Creator. Its proud pontiff calls himself God's vice- 
gerent on earth, Vicar of Christ. By his subjects he 
is denominated, " His Holiness," " Our Lord God the 
Pope." The celebrated canonist, Prospero Fagnani, 
the oracle of the court of Rome, in his commentaries 
on the Decretals, thus defines the Pope : 

"He may make laws and institutions for all the 
world. He has power over all men, even infidels. 
The Pope judges all men, and can he only judged of 
God. He cannot be judged of councils; nay, were the 
whole world to pronounce in any particular against the 
Pope, it would he right to submit to his judgment against 
the world. Everything he does is done by divine au- 
thority. The Pope may, by himself alone, determine 
the symbols of faith, since it belongs to him only to 
decide in matters of faith. The Pope is not subject to 
the decisions of his predecessors — not even to that of the 
Apostles; for there is no power that can limit the 
power of the keys. He may dispense with the observance 
of the divine laws and the Gospel precepts. The Pope 
may grant every species of dispensation, with the excep- 
tion of one, to marry one's father, or one's mother. He 
may depose magistrates and princes, and free their 
subjects from their obligations to loyalty. He is king 
of kings and ruler of rulers ; he is the prince of bishops, 
the judge of all men. He can create a law where before 



ARROGANCE 105 

there was none" If this is not dethroning the King of 
heaven, what shall we call it ? 

Innocent III., in his coronation sermon, said : — " Now 
you may see who is the servant who is placed over the 
family of the Lord; truly is he the Vicar of Jesus 
Christ, the successor of Peter, the Christ of the Lord, the 
God of Pharaoh; placed in the middle between God and 
man, on this side of God, but beyond man; less than God, 
but greater than man ; who judges all, but is judged by 
none. * 

Bellarmine wrote : — " If the Pope should err by enjoin- 
ing vices or prohibiting virtues, the Church, unless she 
toould sin against conscience, would be bound to believe 
vices to be good and virtues evil." What can we say to 
men who profess such doctrines ? 

Another writer, in denning the limits between Papal 
and secular power, affirms : — " The Pope is bound by 
no forms of law; his pleasure is law. The Pope 
makes right of that which is wrong, and can change 
the nature of things. He can change square things 
into round." 

Nor must it be imagined that these doctrines are 
only the legacy of the dark ages. They are the beliefs 
of the living present, held more firmly now than ever. 

* A contemporary poet addressed Innocent : — 

" Non Deus es, nee homo ; sed neuter et inter utrumque, 
Quern Deus elegit socium ; soci aliter egit 
Tecum partitus mundum, sibi noluit unus 
Omnia, sed voluit tibi terras et sibi ccelum." 



106 ARROGANCE. 

The Freeman's Journal and Catholic Register of 
New York, under date of Oct. 1, 1870, holds this lan- 
guage : — " It is as obligatory to hear the voice of Pius 
IX., when he speaks, avowedly to the universal 
Church, as it is to listen to the voice of Jesus Christ." 

The Papal Church has the effrontery and the blas- 
phemy to claim, even in this age, that she is, always 
has been and ever will be, immutable. Le Universe, 
an Ultramontane journal of France, lately contained 
the following : — 

" The Catholic Church is in the commencement of 
all things. It has always existed and will always 
exist. It was before time, it is in time, it will be 
after time, without spots, or wrinkles, or any change. 
It does not change ; it is developed. It is from God, 
it is through God, it will be God, for God has consti- 
tuted it to fill the human race with divinity, that it 
may become an increase of God." 

This, in face of Rome's numberless changes, her 
countless contradictions and variations (see "Edgar's 
Variations"), is a faith that may well be denominated 
sublime. The present Pope is a firm believer in tran- 
substantiation, but Pope Gelasius I. wrote : — " The 
substance of the bread and wine ceases not to exist." 
The doctrine of purgatory is, with all true Catholics 
of the present day, an essential part of that perfect, 
unchanged and unchangeable system. But this doc- 
trine, little more than four hundred years old, is con- 
demned by more than twenty of the fathers, including 



ARROGANCE. 107 

St. Augustine, Justin Martyr, Cyprian, Tertullian, 
Ambrose, the two Cyrils, Chrysostom, Athenasius, and 
Jerome. Not always was Rome so unreflecting as 
publicly to proclaim her damnable avarice, her heart- 
lessness and inhumanity in allowing the souls of her 
"beloved children" to lie "broiling in the fiercest 
flames" till a few coppers, wrenched from her poverty- 
stricken victims, drop into her accursed coffers. Pio 
Nono, and all intelligent Papists, it is fair to presume, 
agree with the teachers of science, as to the diameter 
of the earth. But Pope Gregory, and Bellarmine, and 
Dr. Rosaccio placed purgatory at the earth's centre, 
more than 18,000 miles below the surface. They 
must be correct, for infallibility, it seems, has mea- 
sured it. The Inquisition of Rome, in 1633, guided by 
the Yicar of God, infallible Pope Urban, in condemning 
Galileo, affirmed : — " The proposition that the earth 
moves is absurd, philosophically false, and theologically 
considered, at least, erroneous in faith." As infallibi- 
lity cannot correct itself, in what a dilemma the Papal 
world finds itself! They are living on a flat, immovable 
planet, the centre of the universe. Similar countless 
contradictions and variations of Popery in no way 
stagger the faith of true Romanists, however. The 
children of Holy Mother, evidently believing some 
things because they are absurd, give us touches of 
arrogance that are truly sublime. Le Pere Lacordaire, 
the noted Dominican preacher, in a sermon delivered 
not long since in Notre Dame, exclaims : — 



108 ARROGANCE, 

66 Assuredly the desire has not been wanting to lay 
hold of us, or put us to fault against immutability ; for 
what a weighty privilege to all those who do not possess 
it : a doctrine immutable when everything upon earth 
changes ! a doctrine which men hold in their hands, 
which poor old men in a place called the Vatican guard 
under the key of this cabinet, and which without any 
other defence resists the course of time, the dreams of 
sages, the designs of kings, the fall of empires — always 
one, constant, identical with itself! What a prodigy 
to deny ! What an accusation to silence ! " 

A little farther on he represents the Pope, after re- 
fusing the demand of the present age for change, and 
scorning a million of men under arms, as indignantly 
exclaiming, when offered half of Caesar's sceptre on con- 
dition he will change just a little : 

"Keep thy purple, Caesar! to-morrow they will 
bury thee in it; and we will chant over thee the Al- 
leluia and the De Profundis, which never change." 

Since this eloquent bombast was penned, Pio Nono 
has yielded his temporal crown to a few shouting Libe- 
rals. Yet such is the grandeur of Papal arrogance that, 
ignoring changes, the Pope's loyal sons shout : " ( Man's 
extremity is God's opportunity.' We stand by now; 
and wait to see how the Lord will bring safety for our 
Church out of what, humanly considered, is a desperate 
case. But let the enemy take note of our confidence ! 
We acknowledge we know not how, but we are sure of 
a deliverance. We do not know what the Holy Father 



ARROGANCE. 109 

will do. Perhaps the Holy Father does not know what 
he will do a month hence." * 

So the boasted immutability has been shivered to 
pieces by the waywardness of the Pope's "poor mis- 
guided sheep." And since infallibility is unfortunately 
not foreknowledge, even "Our Lord God the Pope" 
does not know what will come of his having so per- 
emptorily refused the half of Caesar's crown, offered him 
by the vivid imagination of " the great Dominican." 

The Church of Rome claims the exclusive right to 
interpret Scriptures. According to Popery, individual 
believers have no right whatever to form for themselves 
opinions as to the meaning of the Bible. In religious 
matters they have no right to think. It is their duty 
to believe and to obey. It is the exclusive right of the 
sovereign Pontiff to think and to command.*)- God has 
indeed given all men reason and conscience, but they 
may not use them except according to Papal rule. The 
Pope gives to the Word of God all the authority it can 
possess ! Without his sanction it has no binding force. 
He can abrogate the laws of the Creator. He can de- 
clare the commands of Christ of no effect. If God 
should speak in an audible voice from heaven, we would 
not be required to obey unless the Pope endorsed the 

* Freeman's Journal, Oct. 8, 1870. 

t In the bull of Gregory XVI., dated May 8, 1844, occur these 
words: "Watch attentively over those appointed to expound the 
Holy Scriptures, that they dare not, under any pretext whatever, in- 
terpret or explain the holy pages contrary to the traditions of the 
Holy Fathers, or to the service of the Catholic Church." 



HO ARROGANCE. 

command. Nay, the case is even worse. For the spir- 
itual despot in the eternal city has actually forbidden 
his subjects to read, or even possess, the will of heaven 
revealed for our salvation. The bull of May 8th, 1844, 
contains this remarkable prohibition : 

" Moreover, we confirm: and renew the decrees re- 
cited ABOVE, DELIVERED IN FORMER TIMES BY APOSTOLIC 
AUTHORITY, AGAINST THE PUBLICATION, DISTRIBUTION, 
READING AND POSSESSION OF BOOKS OF THE HOLY SCRIP- 
TURES TRANSLATED INTO THE VULGAR TONGUE." 

Thus an erring creature presumes to tell the King 
of heaven that he may not make known his will to his 
own creatures. Has not Romanism "exalted itself 
above all that is called God ?" 

In entire consistency this mystery of iniquity has 
denounced the American Bible Society as " a most 
crafty device, shaking the foundations of religion," " a 
pestilence," ■' a defilement of the faith most eminently 
dangerous to souls." Again : " It is greatly feared that 
Bible societies will, by a perverse interpretation, turn 
Christ's Gospel into a human Gospel, or, what is worse 
still, into a Gospel of the devil." In a letter dated 
June 26th, 1816, and addressed to the Primate of Po- 
land, Pius VII. said : " It is evident, from experience, 
that the Holy Scriptures, ivhen circulated in the vidgar 
tongue, have, through the temerity of men, produced more 
harm than benefit. Warn the people intrusted to your 
care, that they fall not into the snares prepared for their 
everlasting ruin." In the nineteenth century language 



ARROGANCE. HI 

such as this falls from lips claiming superior sanctity 
and even supernatural guardianship ! If our versions 
are so shockingly dangerous, and that, too, when simple 
translations without note or comment, one would sup- 
pose they would industriously circulate a translation 
of their own. Instead of doing so, however, this pro- 
position, " It is useful and necessary to study the Scrip- 
tures," one of the Popes branded as "false, shocking, 
scandalous, seditious, impious, blasphemous." It would 
seem that in the judgment of Rome the Bible is the 
most dangerous book in existence. And yet, strange 
to say, this immutable, infallible Church has, by solemn 
decree, granted her priests the privilege of selling li- 
cences to read God's Word. Among the ten rules en- 
acted by the Council of Trent respecting prohibited 
books, we find this : 

"It is referred to the judgment of the bishops, or in- 
quisitors, who may, by the advice of the priest or con- 
fessor, PERMIT THE READING OF THE BlBLE TRANSLATED 
INTO THE VULGAR TONGUE BY CATHOLIC AUTHORS, TO 
THOSE PERSONS WHOSE FAITH AND PIETY, THEY APPRE- 
HEND, WILL BE AUGMENTED, AND NOT INJURED BY IT ; AND 
THIS PERMISSION THEY MUST HAVE IN WRITING." 

Thus God's Vicegerent tells him : " We will grant our 
subjects permission to read your message of life if they 
will pay us for the privilege." Standing between the 
Creator and the creature, the Pope says to the former : 
" You may not speak to my subjects ; " to the latter : 
" You may not receive the message of your Maker, un- 



112 ARROGANCE. 

less you have the means of purchasing my permission." 
And even this presumption is sustained by Roman 
logic. " The Pope has the chief power of disposing of 
the temporal affairs of Christians, in order to their spir- 
itual good." Wealth corrupts men. By every con- 
ceivable means, therefore, it should be taken from them. 
Verily we are prepared to read this claim : " The Pope 
has power above all powers in heaven and in earth." 
"He, as God, sitteth in the temple of God, showing 
himself that he is God." 

It is a maxim with Popery that ignorance is the 
mother of devotion. If this be true— and infallibility 
has affirmed it — the devotion of the mass of Papists 
must be the deepest, the purest, the noblest, and the 
most spiritual the erring creatures of God have ever 
rendered him. And hence arises a reason, all powerful 
with Romanists, why popular education should be op- 
posed. And accordingly they are, and always have 
been, opposed to the freedom of the press, to the gene- 
ral diffusion of knowledge, to the progress of the arts 
and sciences. Pope Gregory, in his bull of 1832, de- 
nounces liberty of opinion, of conscience, and of the 
press, as " absurd and erroneous doctrines ; pregnant 
with the most deplorable evils ; and pests of all others 
most to be dreaded in a state." And those who pro- 
claim censures such as these irreconcilable with the 
rights of men, are charged with " falsity, rashness, and 
infamous effrontery." Catholicism is, in interest, in 
principle, and in policy, the uncompromising foe to 



ARROGANCE. 113 

modern ideas of education. What Protestants denomi- 
nate the dark ages Romanism calls the golden age. It 
disdains the civilization, intelligence, and sterling ac- 
tivity of the present, and were the power hers, no doubt 
the wheels of progress would be turned backwards four 
or five centuries. 

The Church of Rome claims ability to forgive sins. 
Confession being made and the money demanded handed 
over, absolution is unconditionally granted. This is 
their claim. And in accordance therewith is their 
practice. We are indeed aware of the affirmation of 
many, that the priests, in granting absolution, merely 
declare, that to the penitent, sin is remitted by God. 
We affirm, however, that the Church claims the inhe- 
rent power of forgiving sin. One of the anathemas of 
the Council of Trent, certainly no mean authority, is : 
" If any one shall say that the sacramental absolution 
of the priest is not a judicial act, but a naked ministry 
of pronouncing and declaring that sins are remitted to 
the person confessing, provided only they be believers .... 
let him be accursed." Here forgiveness of sin is claimed 
as a judicial act of the priest. He sits in Christ's seat, 
granting pardon. And against each and every apolo- 
gist, whether Papal or Protestant, who, smoothing down 
the asperities of Popery, would reconcile it with reason, 
Rome's last argument is fulminated, " anathema sit." 

And their theological works contain arguments to 
prove that to the Pope has been given the right of 
granting this pardoning power to every priest. Did 



114 ARROGANCE. 

not Christ say to Peter, " Whatsoever thou loosest on 
earth shall be loosed in heaven?" Every priest, there- 
fore, holding his commission from Peter's successor, has 
ability to pardon the sinner. And why not ? Is there 
not a storehouse of good works ? Has not the Pope 
the key? May he not disinterestedly sell the merit ac- 
cumulated from the obedience of the faithful above all 
that God required ? Absolutions are, therefore, only 
the transfers of merit, of the supererogatory works of 
Rome's renowned saints. And surely he who can make 
virtue vice, and vice virtue, can set some of this treasure 
to the account of the sinner who proves the genuineness 
of his desire for it by paying the stipulated price. 
Nay, " the Mother of Harlots " can do more than forgive 
sins. She has the right to sell indulgences. And every 
sin has its price. Did space permit, it would furnish a 
pitiable exhibition of the innate depravity of man to 
run over the list prepared by this trafficker in human 
souls. There is the price of an indulgence to " murder 
one's father, mother, brother, sister, wife, or other rela- 
tive, one dollar and seventy-five cents;" "for theft, 
sacrilege, rapine, perjury, two dollars;" "for incest 
with a sister, a mother, or any near relative, two dol- 
lars and a quarter." At the end of one of the chapters 
in this, the " Pope's Chancery Book," it is said : " Note 
well : Graces and dispensations of this kind are not 
conceded to the poor, because they have no means, 
therefore they cannot be comforted." Poor creatures ! 
Their poverty is their only sin ! That the traffic in 



ARROGANCE. 115 

these indulgences is now dull, is not because Eome has 
willingly abandoned the lucrative business, but because 
the light of the Reformation has ruined the trade. 
Even yet, however, they are purchasable by prayers, 
and especially by the repetition of Mary's rosary. 
" The Catholic Manual," a collection of devotional ex- 
ercises, promises a plenary indulgence on each of the 
solemn feasts of Christ and of the blessed Virgin Mary, 
to those who, with these beads, pray devoutly at least 
once a week. Whoever repeats & Hail Mary in the 
morning, is promised "an indulgence of a hundred 
days, each day of the week, and seven years and seven 
times forty days on each Sunday." By carefully fol- 
lowing the sixteen instructions on indulgences in " The 
Catholic Manual," a devout Papist, by laboring with 
the machinery of devotion about four hours each day 
for five years, could, we think, very easily purchase a 
thousand years' unbridled licence in sin. About one 
hundred monks, working diligently, could, we believe, 
lay up merit adequate to pardon the -entire world of 
sinners. They might thus open a new spiritual bank 
and rival the Pope in making merchandise of souls. 
Why, therefore, should the subjects of Pio Nono tremble 
with apprehensions of the torments of perdition ? The 
infallible Church has granted, and therefore, of course, 
can again grant, permission to commit any sin, engag- 
ing to extinguish the flames of hell. None, to whom 
he grants a claim to the joys of the redeemed, can be 
finally lost. None can enter paradise without his pass- 



116 ARROGANCE. 

port. Did not Jesus say to Peter, u I will give unto 
thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven ?" These keys 
have been handed down from Peter to the present 
Pope ! Therefore, " He openeth, and no man shutteth ; 
and shutteth, and no man openeth." On what condi- 
tion will he open heaven to the soul ? When the dues 
to the Church are paid. Did ever assumption equal this? 

Claiming sovereignty over his people not only in this 
world but also in the world to come, the Pope controls 
even purgatorial fires§ How long souls are kept in the 
purifying flames would seem to depend entirely on the 
willingness of living friends to pay money for the cele- 
bration of masses. Archbishop Hughes, when on earth, 
was lauded as one of the holiest of men. It required, 
however, a long time to pray his soul out of purgatory. 
" How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the 
kingdom of heaven." 

Nor does Papal presumption stop even here. In the 
doctrine of the real presence, according to which in 
every crumb of bread and in every drop of wine Christ's 
entire nature, human and divine, is comprehended, we 
have arrogance the most blasphemous which it is pos- 
sible to conceive. Christ, in his undivided humanity, 
is present in heaven and on the countless Popish altars 
of all countries and all ages, entire, perfect, complete 
in every particle of the consecrated elements. And 
yet, lest human weakness should be horrified with eat- 
ing flesh and drinking blood, the form, appearance, 
qualities, and taste of bread and wine remain un- 



ARROGANCE. 117 

changed. And this self-contradictory miracle, the most 
stupendous ever imposed upon human credulity, it is 
affirmed, is daily wrought by priestly power. A learned 
Cardinal says : "He that created me gave me, if it be 
lawful to tell, to create himself. " And Pope Urban af- 
firmed : " The hands of the pontiff are raised to an 
eminence granted to none of the angels, of creating 
God the Creator of all things, and of offering him 
up for the salvation of the whole world." One shudders 
as he reads such blasphemy. And to find in the Free- 
man's Journal of Sept. 3, 1870, such language as this, 
"How many prayers have they (the French priests 
praying for unhappy Napoleon III.) offered even toith 
the Most Holy in their hands" too plainly proves that 
Popery is the same unchanged monster of iniquity. 

Add to the above list of assumptions, the last and 
greatest of all, infallibility, so recently exalted into a 
dogma, and you have all that it would seem possible 
for man to claim ; all that the proudest and most cruel 
tyrant could desire. The arrogance is complete; the 
despotism is perfect. The Pope has the right to en- 
slave the body; nay, even to take life, to bind the con- 
science, and to damn the soul. And in the exercise of 
these divine prerogatives, to err is impossible. These 
assumptions the faithful are not only expected to be- 
lieve with the whole heart, but to yield unresisting 
obedience to the tyranny thence resulting. 

" I'd rather be a dog, and bay the moon, 
Than such a Roman." 




CHAPTER II. j 

INFALLIBILITY. 
J[2 Thes. ii. 4, and 1 Tim. iv. 2.) 

(HE year 1870 will be forever memorable in the 
history of the Papacy. It has witnessed the 
grotesquely solemn ascription of one of the attri- 
butes of deity to the pretended successor of 
Peter. " Speaking lies in hypocrisy/' and raving in a 
delirium of passion, the sovereign pontiff shouts :— 

" I am the Pope : the Vicar of Jesus Christ ; the chief of the 
Catholic Church, and I have called this Council, which shall do 
His work, .... I say, — I, who can not but speak the truth, 
— that if we would establish liberty, we must never fear to speak 
the truth, and to denounce error. I too would be free as well as 
the truth itself." * 

"And there are those now who are in fear of the world ! They 
fear revolution ! . . . . They will sacrifice all the rights of the 
Holy See, and their love for the Vicar of Jesus Christ. Miserable 
men, what must they do ? They seek the applause of men. We, 
my children, we seek the approbation of God. You must sustain 
the claims of truth and righteousness. It is the duty of the bishops 
fearlessly to fight in the defence of truth alongside of the Vicar of 
Jesus. Christ. My children, do not forsake me." f 

* Allocution, Jan. 9th, 1870. 

f From the Pope's speech to the Vicars Apostolic, March 23d, 1870. 
118 




THE INFALLIBLE POPE. 



INFALLIBILITY. 119 

In answer to this pathetic appeal the unterrified 
made the Vatican ring with cries, " No, No, No, Vive 
V Infallible! Vive V Infallible ! ! Vive I 'In fallible ! ! 7" 
At the public reception. May 14, 1870, one continuous 
deafening shout was heard, " Long live the Infallible. 7 ' 
Was Paul picturing this scene when he wrote, " Who 
opposes himself, and exalts himself against all that is 
called God, and against all worship : even to seat him- 
self in the temple of God, and take on himself openly 
the signs of Godhead?" (Conybeare and Howson's 
Version.) 

Preparations for this solemn farce were made even so 
early as the year 1864. Then was issued the Encycli- 
cal and Syllabus, since so famous, which commend most 
of the arrogant assumptions of previous Pontiffs, and 
denounce, in no measured terms, the civilization, pro- 
gress, religion and education of the present. With 
characteristic impudence they claim for the Pope the 
right of abrogating civil law, of enforcing obedience to 
Catholic dogmas, of employing corporal punishment, 
and even of compelling princes to execute civil penalties 
for ecclesiastical offences. They insist, in language not 
to be mistaken, that to Holy Mother belongs the exclu- 
sive right to educate the young, that priests are not 
subject to civil governments, that the Pope rules, jure 
divino, in temporal things, that the right to solemnize 
marriage is the exclusive possession of the priesthood, 
that Catholicism is the only system of faith entitled to 
man's suffrage, and, accordingly, that Protestant worship 



120 INFALLIBILITY. 

ought not to be tolerated, and where it can be sup- 
pressed, as in New Granada and in Rome, must be. 
Not content with endorsing Gregory's condemnation of 
liberty of conscience as an insanity, His Infallibility 
denominates it the liberty of perdition. The privilege 
of embracing that religion which, led by the light of 
reason, a man conscientiously believes to be right, is 
repeatedly and emphatically denied. Even the will of 
an entire nation, though calmly, kindly and intelligently 
expressed, can by no possibility constitute law ; cannot 
lawfully demand the respect of Christ's Vicar. Having 
thus condemned all liberty, personal and national, civil 
and religious, he commits himself unqualifiedly to 
despotism, by anathematizing those who demand that 
the Roman Pontiff should harmonize himself with pro- 
gress and modern civilization, and by denying to the 
down-trodden even the God-given right of rebellion. 
Fitly is this proud tyranny crowned with the unblush- 
ing assertion, that the judgments, decisions, dogmas and 
practices of the Church are infallible. 

Conceived in iniquity, this now famous dogma was 
brought forth by the suppression of free discussion. 
Protests against its adoption, though respectfully word- 
ed and courteously presented, were sent back without 
comment or communication, and in some instances even 
unread. Arguments in every way deserving of serious 
attention obtained no answer.* The German prelates, 



* "I protest," said Father Hyacinthe, " against the pretended dog- 
ma of the Pope's infallibility, as it is contained in the decree of the 



INFALLIBILITY. 121 

in a carefully prepared protest, said, " Unless these (the 
great difficulties arising from the words and acts of the 
Fathers of the Church, as contained in authentic docu- 
ments of Catholic history) can be resolved, it will be 
impossible to impose this doctrine upon Christian people 
as being a revelation from heaven." And yet far from 
succeeding, scarcely an effort was made in removing 
the difficulties. "All religion," said Cardinal Schwar- 
zenberg, " is at an end in Bohemia if this definition is 
affirmed." " No words," said another prelate, " can 
express the evils which will accrue to the cause of reli- 
gion throughout Hungary, if infallibility is affirmed." 
These, like all the bishops who dared to anticipate 
social and political evils from the adoption of this new 
dogma, were treated as disturbers of the peace, as dis- 
loyal to Christ's Yicar, as grossly impertinent and 

Council of Rome. It is because I am a Catholic, and wish to remain 
such, that I refuse to admit as binding upon the faith of the faithful 
a doctrine unknown to all ecclesiastical history, which is disputed 
even now by numerous and eminent theologians, and which implies 
not a regular development, but a gradual change in the constitution 
of the Church, and in the immutable rule of its faith. It is because I 
am a Christian and wish to remain such, that I protest with all my 
soul against these almost divine attributes to a man who is presented 
to our faith — I was about to say to our worship — as uniting in his per- 
son both the domination which is opposed to the spirit of that Gos- 
pel of which he is a minister, and to the infallibility which is repug- 
nant to the clay from which, like ourselves, he is formed. One of the 
most illustrious predecessors of Pius IX., St. Gregory the Great, 
rejected as a sign of Antichrist the title of Universal Bishop which 
was offered to him. What would he have said to the title of Infallible 
Pontiff?" 



1 22 INFA LLIBILITY. 

presumptuous. A correspondent of the Liberte gives an 
account of a strange scene between the Pope and the 
Syrian Patriarch of Babylon. The Patriarch, who, 
before leaving for Rome had taken solemn oath to 
defend the liberties of the Oriental Churches, said in 
Council: "We Orientals reserve our rights, which 
moreover have been recognized by the Council of Flor- 
ence." The Pope, irritated, sent for him. The vener- 
able Prelate immediately repaired to the Vatican . The 
Pontiff, pale and greatly agitated, presented a paper by 
which the Patriarch renounced all his rights and privi- 
leges. " Sign that," said Pius IX. " I cannot," replied 
the Prelate. The Pope, seized with one of his violent 
fits of anger, striking his hand on the table, exclaimed : 
" You cannot leave without signing it." The Patriarch 
reminded him of his oath. " Your oath is a nullity, 
sign." After an hour's useless struggle the Prelate sub- 
mitted, appending his signature. 

Those who, with irresistible logic demanded unani- 
mity as the condition of promulgating a new dogma, 
especially one so important and far-reaching in its 
consequences, were insulted, threatened with deposi- 
tion, and in the end forced either to absent themselves 
or to vote infallibility.* The Pope, as in the prepara- 
tions for the Council, so in its proceedings, assumed to 

* The votes were as follows : — 

July 13th. July 18th. 

Placet, 451 533 

Placet juxta niodum, 62 

Kon-placet, S3 2 



INFALLIBILITY. 123 

decide the gravest questions. He ostentatiously pro- 
claimed himself as by divine appointment the infallible 
head of the Church. By lauding and honoring the 
friends of infallibility, and insulting and denouncing 
their opponents, denominating them "bad Catholics/' 
he showed himself the worthy head of the order of 
Jesuits. Freedom of opinion became a mere name ; 
discussion only a pretence. The result was predeter- 
mined; known when the Council was called. The 
French bishops, in a manifesto portraying with just 
indignation the successive steps taken in suppressing 
all freedom, affirm : a Debate in general convocation 
has been a mere illusion : discussion has been muzzled, 
and free speech gagged. Passion is dominating more 
and more : old traditions and usages are abandoned, 
just claims forgotten, and the most elementary rules 

set at nought A good cause does not need 

to be supported by violence." 

By such agencies as these an assembly of bishops, 
•who according to ancient Roman law had no right to 
originate dogma, but simply to express in formula doc- 
trines which had ever been held as objects of universal 
belief, promulgated a dogma as dishonoring to God as 
it is insulting to man. 

And the arguments by which this monstrous claim 
was supported, are, like those by which St. Liguori 
proves Mary a proper object of worship, so excessively 
weak as to excite contempt. We do not affirm that 
those who employ them are men of feeble intellect. 



124 INFALLIBILITY. 

This, in many instances, is certainly not the case. 
But men of powerful minds, when thoroughly com- 
mitted to an absurdity, are, of course, forced to bring 
forward arguments which strike every unbiassed lis- 
tener as simply ridiculous. And to hear mitred bishops 
and self-inflated cardinals, and a host of priests repeat- 
edly and solemnly declaring that the doctrine of infal- 
libility is as old as the Christian Church, would cer- 
tainly excite universal laughter, were not the conse- 
quences of the claim so appalling. And the argument 
from silence, so much employed, how conclusive! For 
ten centuries you find no protest against it. The 
fathers never mention it. They present no labored 
arguments in its favor. The councils uttered no 
anathemas against those refusing adhesion to it. The 
Popes, those sacred custodians of truth, have held no 
allocutions respecting it, have issued no bulls against 
those who questioned it. Therefore, of course, it must 
have been the universal faith from the time of the Apos- 
tles. Now, however, for the first time, some damnable 
heretics have presumed to call it in question. It is on this 
account that we deem it necessary to proclaim what has 
ever been the faith of those constituting the Church. 
Why this argument would not prove that two and two 
make five it would be difficult for a Protestant to con- 
ceive. But Papists, apparently, deem it entirely con- 
clusive. The Kev. James Kent Stone, a recent convert 
to Catholicism, expands it to great length, and seem- 
ingly considers it unanswerable. Surely arguments 
must be scarce. 



INFALLIBILITY. 125 

Dr. Henry Newman, another champion of Komanism, 
in his " Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent/' appeals 
to common sense in proof of infallibility! He under- 
takes to show that the principles of assent applied to 
the ordinary affairs of life, logically lead to an enforced 
belief in the last dogma of Eome. We have the same 
reasons for believing that the Pope is infallible that we 
have for believing that Napoleon III. is a prisoner, viz., 
a great many people say so. We Protestants, upstarts 
of three centuries, ought to have the modesty to confess 
ourselves unable to see the force in metaphysical dis- 
quisitions so abstruse. 

Then there is the Scriptural argument so laboriously 
drawn out in the London Vatican of July 29th, 1870 : 
" Did not Christ say : ' Thou art Peter, and upon this 
rock I will build my church?' (We fancy we have 
heard that quoted before by Papists.) Even this, 
however, was not enough for the Most High to say to 
the first primate. Hence he adds, ' And the gates of 
hell shall never prevail against it.' Not enough yet. 
The sovereign Pope must reign in both worlds at 
once. i I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom 
of heaven.' Not sufficient still. 'And whatsoever 
thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and 
whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in 
heaven.' Then, moreover, Jesus said to Peter, not to 
John (the records must needs be amended, so the facts 
of Peter's fall, denial and profanity are cautiously and 
very considerately suppressed): 'I have prayed for 



126 INFALLIBILITY. 

thee that thy faith fail not.' God's Vicar could not 
err, because his fall would have been the ruin of the 
Church." (The sacred record, you see, must be incor- 
rect. Peter must have remained firm, for the Church 
has been infallible ever since. This passage must be 
like that other, which speaks of Peter's wife's mother, 
whereas Peter could by no possibility have been guilty 
of having a wife, since all his successors, following his 
illustrious example, vow celibacy.) Then follows the 
admonition addressed to the first pontiff, and through 
him to the long succession of Holy Fathers, " Confirm 
thy brethren." So you see, or don't you see? — the Pope 
is infallible. Can't you say with " the greatest theo- 
logian of the age," u There is hardly a doctrine of 
Christianity which is so conspicuously vouched in Holy 
Scripture, or which its divine author thought proper 
to reveal by such an astonishing iteration of words and 
acts, as that of the primacy and inerrancy of his Yicar V 
This famous passage which does battle everywhere, 
which proves that priests can forgive sins, that the 
Pope can send a man to hell, to heaven, or to purga- 
tory, that Peter was primate, that the Catholic Church 
is as unchangeable as a rock, that no man can be saved 
unless within its sinless pale, that Popery, in the exact 
form in which it now exists, shall continue till the 
Church militant becomes the Church triumphant, that 
corporal punishment for spiritual offences is heaven- 
ordained, and that Peter never fell, also, according to 
Papal logic, incontestably, unmistakably, irresistibly 



INFALLIBILITY. 127 

proves that Pio Nono, in this nineteenth century, is 
infallible. 

Lastly, we have the argument of the bishop of Poitiers, 
which elicited such applause in the Vatican Council : — 
" St. Paul was beheaded ; consequently his head, which 
represents the ordinary episcopate, was not indissolubly 
united to the body. St. Peter, on the contrary, was 
crucified with his head downwards, to show that his 
head, which was the image of the Papacy, sustained 
the whole body." So you perceive the present Pope 
must be infallible. He says so. And how otherwise 
could he sustain the entire Church? — -how be a Rock? 

Proved, to the satisfaction of Papists by arguments 
such as these, infallibility was, July 18th, 1870, ex- 
alted into a dogma. The entire Catholic world must 
henceforth believe, on pain of eternal damnation, " that 
when the Roman pontiff speaks ex cathedra .... he 

possesses infallibility.* In interpretation of 

this the New York Freemans Journal and Catholic 
Register, of September 3d, 1870, says : " In his personal 
character as Pope, without awaiting the agreement of 
the Catholic Episcopate, the Pope is infallible personally. 
The expression personal infallibility of the Pope is there- 
fore correct." 

So the famous and long-continued discussion, where 
resides the infallibility of the Church — in the Pope, in 
a General Council, or in the concurrent voice of both ? — . 

* Dogmatic Decree on the Church of Christ, chap. iv. 



128 INFALLIBILITY. 

is at last ended. No second Dean Swift need taunt- 
ingly say, " Really, Holy Mother might as well be with- 
out an infallible head, as not to know where to find 
him in necessity." Five hundred and thirty-three robed 
bishops have solemnly proclaimed that he lives in Rome, 
or did, and is the legitimate successor of the fallible 
Peter. He eats bread, drinks wine, rides out daily in 
his coach, twirls his finger in an ecstasy of delight as 
he pronounces benedictions on those who shout, " Yive 
l'lnfallible," and scowls with rage as he utters anathe- 
mas against the Protestant failure. 

As this last and most insolent dogma of Popery has 
been established without argument, or rather in spite 
of argument, it certainly were folly for Protestants to 
dignify it by attempting a formal refutation. To argue 
a shouting crowd into silence is impossible. And a 
cloud, dense, dark, impalpable, portending storm, is not 
dissolved by man's howling out a few syllogisms. Many 
an error has been argued into respectability by its op- 
ponents. For some absurdities no argument is more 
powerful than ridicule ; for some pretensions no treat- 
ment so galling as silent contempt. And Protestants 
can certainly well afford to let bishops, priests, and 
people tell each other that they believe, or make be- 
lieve, Pio Nono is infallible. If, however, any desire 
to examine a complete demolition of Rome's last arro- 
gant claim, we commend to their careful perusal, " The 
Pope and the Council," by Janus. This work, origi- 
nating in the bosom of the Papal Church, written by 



INFALLIBILITY. 129 

persons claiming to be genuine Catholics, and proving 
with inexorable logic that the doctrine of infallibility is 
a mere novelty in the religious world, has caused much 
uneasiness even in the seared conscience of the Papal 
Church, and called forth a vast amount of fruitless 
effort at refutation. We have seldom seen such piti- 
able exhibitions of the inherent weakness of a cause as 
may be seen in the absurdly feeble attempts to answer 
Janus. The Catholic World of New York (June, 
July, and August numbers, 1870), contains articles 
which, for feebleness and clumsy special pleading, are, 
we firmly believe, entitled to the first place in the lit- 
erature of the last half century. Every unprejudiced 
reader must certainly rise from their perusal thoroughly 
convinced that the reception of the infallibility dogma 
is purely an. act of faith. If that is Rome's best show- 
ing, her proud claim evidently rests exclusively on 
bold and oft-repeated assertion and specious false- 
hood. 

Since at last we have an infallible man, we ought to 
know how his decrees are to be transmitted to us falli- 
bles. He is accessible only to a limited few. How can 
he make every chfld of Holy Mother infallibly certain 
what the truth is ? Are all archbishops and bishops 
and priests to be next declared infallible ? Are we to 
have a set of infallible telegraph operators, and infalli- 
ble printers, who shall inform prelates and bishops, who 
in turn shall peddle out infallibility's last announce- 
ment to every loyal Papist ? And unless this is done, 



130 INFALLIBILITY. 

of what use is an infallible head?* Must the faithful 
take an infallible system on the testimony of fallibles ? 
Are they required to believe by proxy ? The Pope 
says, "All must believe what I believe, because I believe 
what all believe." Then every Bomanist, it is to be 
presumed, believes everything contained in " the whole 
"Word of God, written and unwritten." This requires 
belief in at least one hundred and fifty folio volumes, a 
cart-load of contradictory doctrines and clashing tradi- 
tions. If employing private judgment, the layman 
conscientiously endeavors to eliminate truth from this 
mass of useless rubbish, he is guilty of a damnable 
heresy. And how is he to know with infallible cer- 
tainty what is the interpretation of Pius IX. ? Must 
he go to Rome ? Must he await the next (Ecumenical 
Council which shall decree Papal transmission infalli- 
ble ? Or must he content himself with this circular 
argument? I believe what the Pope believes. The 
Pope believes what I believe. "We both believe exactly 
the same. He and I are therefore infallible. And if 
lie is, surely I must be. An unerring head and an err- 
ing body and members, were a kind of nondescript, a 
monster known neither in heaven, on earth, nor in 
hell. 

This marvellous prerogative, it is now claimed, has 
always belonged to the successor of Peter. Has it ever 
decided a single controversy? — ever healed a single 

* The absence of a comma in. one of the recent Decrees came near 
making the entire Catholic world believe a falsehood. 



INFALLIBILITY. 131 

dissension? — ever settled a single quarrel either in 
private, in social or in national life ? In this intensely 
practical age men therefore ask, what good is to result 
from this dogma ? The fiercely bitter strifes between 
the Calvinistic Jansenists and the Arminian Jesuits, 
between the Franciscans and the Dominicans touching 
the kind of homage due the transubstantiated wafer, 
between the advocates and the opponents of the Im- 
maculate Conception of the Virgin Mary, were they, 
even in the slightest degree, alleviated or repressed by 
Christ's infallible Vicar ? And of what value was the 
inerrancy of Pope Liberius who embraced the Arian 
heresy? An infallible primate endorsing a doctrine 
which had already been repeatedly and emphatically 
anathematized, and by the present " Infallible Judge in 
faith and morals" is deemed no less heinous than infi- 
delity itself, is surely a strange proof of indefectibility. 
And of what value was this boasted prerogative to 
Pope Honorius, that old transgressor, whose doctrinal 
errors cost the last (Ecumenical Council such an im- 
mense amount of arguing and falsifying ? Being unani- 
mously condemned by the sixth General Council for 
holding doctrines then, since, and now considered here- 
tical, the advocates of Papal infallibility are placed in 
the awkward dilemma of being forced to believe that 
exact contraries are precisely the same. Benediction 
and anathema, assertion and denial, truth and error, 
are one and the same thing to those who can legislate 
vice into virtue and virtue into vice. Of what practical 



132 INFALLIBILITY. 

worth is that infallibility which in the seventeenth 
century, " desirous of providing against increased detri- 
ment to the holy faith," solemnly affirmed : " The pro- 
position that the earth moves is absurd, philosophically 
false, and theologically considered at least, erroneous in 
faith;" and in this nineteenth century, not merely 
believes the Copernican system, but with brazen-faced 
effrontery endeavors to deny that Galileo suffered per- 
secution for opinion's sake ? And then, too, unless His 
Infallibility can reconcile the two thousand variations 
between the authorized Yulgate Bible of Pope Sextus, 
the infallible, and that of Pope Clement, the infallible, 
the unbelieving world will continue to smile at the 
deliverance of the invincible five hundred.* 

Let Rome's arguments and anathemas therefore be 
never so powerful, an infallibility which suspends civil 
law, spreads rebellion and celebrates a Te Deum for 
the massacre of heretics ; which corrupts the doctrines 
of the Bible, opposes popular education, and hangs on 
the skirts of progress shouting halt; which inveighs 
against the civilization of the present, stops commerce, 
fetters science, enslaves the mind, impoverishes the 
nations, and mingles even with her prayers curses 
against civil and religious liberty, is a dogma which 
this age at least can contemplate only with mingled 
horror and derision. Were it less ridiculous we might 

* Says Dr. John, an eminent Komanist, "The more learned 
Catholics have never denied the existence of errors in the Yulgate ; on 
the contrary, Isidore Clarius collected 80,000." 



INFALLIBILITY. 133 

almost weep tears of blood over the spiritual thraldom 
of one hundred and eighty millions of human beings 
henceforth forced, on pain of excommunication, refusal 
of the sacraments and everlasting damnation, to believe 
an erring mortal "infallible judge in faith and morals," 
Christ's inerrant Yicar. Were it less fatal to the free- 
dom, the morals, and the eternal hopes of enslaved 
Papists we might give way to uproarious laughter, and 
shame the absurdity off the world's stage. We can 
view it however only as a declaration of war against 
civilization ; only as a death knell to the hopes of those 
who are subject to the Roman priesthood. Henceforth 
Popery is to be narrower, more bigoted, more impene- 
trable to truth than ever. While the Protestant world 
is advancing in liberty, intelligence, morality and 
material prosperity, the Papal seems destined to stagna- 
tion, if not, alas, to even grosser superstition, deeper 
ignorance and more abject spiritual servitude. 

What results may flow from this last arrogant as- 
sumption of Rome's proud Pontiff, it is yet too soon to 
predict. The struggle of the last three centuries — a 
struggle between intelligence and superstition, between 
progress and reaction, between light and darkness, be- 
tween all that makes this age hopeful and made the 
middle ages the world's midnight — has ended, ended in 
the triumph of bigotry. In this we may, perhaps, dis- 
cover the beginning of the end. Certainly Catholic 
aggression in civilized countries is henceforth impossible. 
The absurdity is too apparent to impose upon even 
common intelligence. 



134 INFALLIBILITY, 

Infallible but powerless ! French troops withdrawn, 
Napoleon dethroned, Catholic France beaten and help- 
less, the Pope's temporal power gone, his erring sheep 
following the guidance of liberal ideas, himself, though 
claiming to be Supreme Judge over all kings, virtually 
a prisoner, bishops in scores denouncing the infallibility 
blunder,* the entire Catholic world in momentary ap- 
prehension of yet more terrible calamities, surely we are 
powerfully reminded of that ancient and honorable de- 
claration, " In one hour is she made desolate." What 
wonders has God wrought ! How suddenly have her 
woes come upon her ! f " This is the Lord's doing, and 
it is marvellous in our eyes." 

And now from all parts of the Catholic world may 
be heard one long drawn sigh over Popery's helpless 
condition, one deep wail of terror, harmonized from the 

* Bishop Hefele, of Kottenberg, with his entire chapter and the 
theological faculty of Tubingen, have determined to persevere in the 
opposition to the Vatican Council, come what may. Lord Acton 
says : " The Vatican Council has pronounced its own condemnation. 
Some of the most distinguished of the prelates characterized it as a 
'conspiracy against Divine truth and right,' 'a disgrace for all 
Catholics.'" 
f 1870. July 14. Infallibility proclaimed, Protestantism condemned. 
July 15. War declared by Napoleon III. against Protestant 

Prussia. 
Sept. 1. The oldest son of Holy Mother captured by a 

heretic. 
Sept. 20. The Pope and Rome captured by an excommuni- 
cated king. 
Oct. 2. The Roman people's love for the Pope expressed 
by 40.805 negatives against 46 affirmatives. 



INFALLIBILITY. 135 

cry of the impotent infallible, the half frantic winnings 
of bishops and priests, and the evil forebodings of pam- 
phlets, magazines, periodicals, and papers. Plainly, 
whatever results were fondly anticipated from the con- 
summation of the work for which the Council was sum- 
moned, Holy Mother deems herself in dreadful agonies. 
Says the Tablet, a Eoman organ, " There is, alas, no 
room for doubt that a heavy calamity has befallen the 
Holy Church of Eome and the Apostolic See. The in- 
fidels have converted and educated the bad Catholics 
up to the reception of certain opinions and principles 
of their own." So even Komanists will think for them- 
selves, notwithstanding there is an infallible Poj^e to 
think for them. And even now, after all their efforts, 
Italy is tainted to the very core with love of liberty; 
private judgment is even now untrammelled. The ven- 
geance sworn against Kepublicanism, were it not so im- 
potent, might strike terror. It is evidently, however, 
only the wail of despair. 

A cloud, portentous, though small, may be seen on 
the horizon. An ominous increase in the number of 
Jesuits, those unprincipled political tricksters, has taken 
place. In Germany, France, England,. and even in the 
United States, the Catholic papers are sounding "a call 
for a new Crusade." With this as their watchword, 
"Borne belongs to the Catholic Church" they are seeking 
to fire the hearts of the young. Already we learn on 
Papal authority, that " The Catholic youth of Europe 
are stirring, and preparing for the conflict. In our own 



136 s INFALLIBILITY. 

land thousands of hearts, of young Catholic men, are 
burning with desire to add their part to the Grand 
Crusade." In New Orleans an immense mass meeting 
has been held, and that too on Sunday, in utter dis- 
regard of the rights of Protestants and the laws of the 
country, to express sympathy with and secure material 
aid for the " Infallible Judge in faith and morals." All 
this may, most likely will, end in smoke. Possibly, 
however, they may be so infatuated as to continue 
their repinings over the terrible fate of Christ's Yicar, 
perhaps may inaugurate agencies for his restoration, 
possibly may " take up arms against a sea of troubles," 
and thereby hasten the end. The old Romans, whose 
Pagan religion these modern heathen have inherited, 
had an adage containing a mine of good sense, " Whom 
the gods design to destroy they first make mad." Are 
we witnessing the infatuation which precedes destruc- 
tion ? * 

* "We call for a Crusade of the whole of Christendom, to put him 
(the Pope) on his throne Neither the ' King of the mon- 
keys ' (Victor Emmanuel), or any other being, should hold as a subject 
the Pope that is head of our Church." "At this moment St. Peter is 
in chains, in the person of his successor." — Freeman' 's Journal and 
Catholic Begister, jSTov. 19, 1870. 




CHAPTER III. 

DESPOTISM. 
(2 Thess. ii. 9.) 

political tyrant, no despotic Nero, even in his 
most frenzied mood, ever arrogated claims over 
man so cruelly tyrannical as those of Popery. 
Despots have indeed tortured the body till death 
granted release; but to tyrannize over the mind, to 
traffic in the eternal destinies of the soul, to trample at 
will upon man's dearest hopes, those that stretch be- 
yond this troubled life, are abominations known only 
to Romanism. The only usurpations worthy of com- 
parison with hers are the monstrous assumptions of 
Brahminism. And even these, though having the 
same parentage, and manifesting similar dispositions, 
sink into insignificance when compared with those of 
that mystery of iniquity whose coming, it was pre- 
dicted, should be "with all power." 

To render the spiritual control complete, the Papal 
Church has made her seven sacraments so many in- 
struments of despotism. These, in connection with 
her doctrine of intention, form a power of oppression 
truly appalling. In the decree of the Council of Trent 
we read : " If any one shall affirm, that when the min- 

137 



138 DESPOTISM. 

ister performs and confers a sacrament, it is not neces- 
sary that they should, at least, have the intention to do 
what the Church does, let him be accursed." Could 
anything, we ask, place the Romanist more completely 
under the power of the priest? Through him must 
come all spiritual blessings. Here centre all hopes. 
In administering the ordinances of the church, how- 
ever, the officiating priest may, through negligence, or 
to gratify personal resentment, or with the diabolical 
purpose of leaving the suppliant unblessed, withhold 
the intention, giving the form without the substance. 
Thus the poor penitent is entirely at the mercy of his 
spiritual despot. 

The faithful are taught that marvellous grace comes 
through eating the bread transubstantiated by the 
prayer of the priest into the very body of Christ. 
Suppose, however, that when the words are pronounced, 
" This is my body," the celebrant has in reality no 
intention of changing the wafer to flesh. Then the 
worshipper, ignorant of the secret purpose of the min- 
ister's heart, but required by a Church claiming infal- 
libility to believe that the visible wafer " is the body 
and blood, soul and divinity, of Christ," is not merely 
guilty of believing a falsehood, but of the grossest idol- 
atry — the worship of flour and water. On pain of 
eternal damnation, he is ordered to believe an absurd- 
ity, and to bow in adoration before what he cannot 
know to be a God ; nay, what reason and the senses 
testify is bread. If, trusting these, he refuses homage, 



DESPOTISM. 139 

he is threatened by a Church, claiming to possess the 
keys of heaven and hell, with the endless torments of 
perdition. If he adores the host, then, on the conces- 
sion of Rome herself, he may be guilty of worshipping 
the creature, a sin for which, according to the Papal 
Church, there is no forgiveness. If he follows common 
sense, Rome thunders her anathemas against him. If 
he obeys the Church, he may be rendering his damna- 
tion doubly more certain. Did ever despotism equal 
this? Eternal happiness is suspended on the mere 
whim of a priest, and he, perhaps a revengeful, licen- 
tious, drunken wretch. 

Take the sacrament of baptism. In the "Abridgment 
of Christian Doctrine," it is asked, " Whither go the 
souls of infants that die without baptism ? Answer. To 
that part of hell where they suffer the pains of loss, 
but not the punishment of sense ; and shall never see 
the face of God." Tearfully, almost in hopeless despair, 
may the loyal Papist ask, as he kisses the pallid lips of 
the coffined babe, Do any reach the joys of the re- 
deemed ? The sweet whisperings of a hope natural to 
the parental heart are silenced by the stern voice of 
Holy Mother, " Unbaptized, unsaved." How many 
chances against the innocents ! The parents neglect 
their duty : the babe is lost. It is brought to the priest 
and its brow sprinkled with water. Through careless- 
ness or fiendish malignity, however, the intention is 
wanting. The helpless infant is eternally exiled from 
God. Perhaps the priest himself was never baptized ; 



140 DESPOTISM. 

or if baptized, perhaps never ordained. Though these 
ordinances may have been administered, the intention 
may have been wanting. In either case the child is 
doomed to endless woe. Nor is this a mere fancied 
difficulty. No genuine Romanist can by possibility 
possess satisfactory evidence that either he himself or 
his child is validly baptized. And yet he is taught to 
believe that without this baptismal regeneration salva- 
tion is impossible. The legitimate result of such teach- 
ing is to produce a race of the most abject slaves, 
crouching, spiritless. 

The dying Papist, as he receives penance and ex- 
treme unction, feels in his inmost soul that all his 
hopes for time and eternity are suspended on the in- 
tention of the priest, who, " sitting in the tribunal of 
penance, represents the character and discharges the 
functions of Jesus Christ." * To heaven, to hell, or to 
purgatory, as best suits his fancy, he can send the de- 
parting spirit. However deep may have been its 
guilt, however black its crimes, however polluted its 
thoughts, the priest " can confer dying grace" and 
"open the gates of paradise" he can send the most 
devout Romanist to endless despair, eternally beyond 
the reach of hope. Was ever another system devised, 
even in the hotbed of Pagan superstition, so perfectly 
fitted to crush its victims ? What could produce 
slavery more abject, of reason, will, soul and body? 
All the efforts of the poor vassal must be directed to- 

* "Trent Catechism," p. 260. 



DESPOTISM. 141 

wards propitiating the priest, who henceforth stands to 
him in the place of a god. 

Two youthful hearts, innocent and pure, present 
themselves in the first fervor of new-born love, to be 
united in the bonds of holy matrimony. Hope paints 
a radiant future. They are pronounced husband and 
wife. If intelligent Catholics, however, and earnestly 
desirous of true union, they may well ask, as they turn 
from the priest, Are we really married? Perhaps 
there was no intention on the part of him professing to 
confer the sacrament; perhaps the bride, perhaps the 
groom lacked the intention. In either case, Holy 
Mother infallible affirms, the marriage contract is 
null.* By the negligence or wickedness of him who 
should have conferred the matrimonial sacrament, two 
persons, though innocent, pure-minded and conscienti- 
ous, live in mortal sin, and should death overtake 
them in that state — and how can they ever possess 
assurance that they are truly married? — they must 
sink down to endless perdition. Worse still; one of 
the parties may, when the health, wealth or beauty of 
the other is lost, declare under oath that the marriage 
ceremony, by the lack of intention on his or her part, 
was a nullity. The code of Rome declares the union 
dissolved. And what shall hinder an adventurous 
wretch from designing this beforehand, and thus send- 
ing to eternal woe one whose greatest, almost only sin, 
was a lavish bestowment of the entire wealth of her 
affections upon an object so unworthy ? 

* "Abridgment of Doctrine," p. 76. 



142 DESPOTISM. 

To the other sacraments of Romanism, we need not 
refer. The despotism is of the same character as that 
apparent in all parts of her organized system of traffic 
in the souls of men. 

As an engine of spiritual despotism, none, perhaps, 
is so powerful as the confessional. It crushes the poor 
deluded Papist to the very dust. Even for the forgive- 
ness of sins committed against God, he looks to the 
priest. "Absolution is not a bare declaration that sin 
is pardoned by God to the penitent, but really a judi- 
cial act." The subjection is complete. Are such 
down-trodden slaves ever likelv to " become kincrs and 
priests unto God?" Could we expect them to seek the 
closet, and before the High-priest of our profession seek 
and obtain pardon in the blood that cleanses from all 
sin? And as for becoming guardians of civil liberty, 
the very idea is preposterous. They who, at the nod 
of Home's mitred bishops, lick the very dust and swear 
eternal loyalty to a distant spiritual despot; who 
openly proclaim that their first allegiance is due to 
Eome's Sovereign Pontiff; who are educated under a 
system bitterly hostile to all existing forms of govern- 
ment, and especially to those founded on equal rights ; 
who anxiously, prayerfully, imploringly await the re- 
turn of the nations to the despotic forms of government 
now so exceedingly obnoxious ; who denounce the Re- 
formation as the fruitful source of all the worst evils 
that have ever afflicted human society; who oppose 
our common school system, ridicule the right of private 



DESPOTISM. 143 

judgment, repress the sterling activity which has en- 
riched the nations, transforming continents as if by 
magic, and determinedly resist the onward march of 
liberty, personal and national, civil and religious, — 
can such victims of Papal superstition ever become 
good citizens in a free enlightened republic ? 

Even the claim of ability to forgive sin, presumptu- 
ous as it is, and their yet more arrogant claim of power 
to send the soul to purgatory, or to release it from the 
purifying fires, are surpassed by that masterpiece of 
heartless malignity, the solemn assertion of a God- 
given right " to damn the souls of rebellious and refrac- 
tory men." The bull against Henry VIII., as also that 
against Queen Elizabeth, the memorable patroness of 
literature, is the " excommunication and damnation of 
the Sovereign.'' And more than once have the Popes 
pronounced anathemas against the entire Protestant 
world. Surely Paul was predicting Popery when he 
wrote : " Whose coming is after the working of Satan 
with all power." Over those believing her doctrines 
Rome's power is absolute. Nero himself could desire 
no more. 

To render the bondage still more abject, if that were 
possible, one Pope, Stephen, laid the talent of Peter 
under contribution. When Aistulphus, king of the 
Lombards, burning with rage against the Pope, laid 
siege to Rome, Stephen, driven by stern necessity, 
dispatched a messenger to Pepin, king of France, with 
a letter purporting to come from St. Peter, servant and 



144 DESPOTISM. 

Apostle of Jesus Christ. The epistle, direct from 
heaven — written on mundane paper — earnestly en- 
treated and peremptorily ordered " the first son of the 
Church " to earn an eternal reward " by hastening to 
tlte relief of the city, the Church, and the people of 
Rome." Then, apparently fearing that his own re- 
quests and orders should be despised by king Pepin, 
Peter considerately adds : " Our Lad}^, the Virgin 
Mary, mother of God, joins in earnestly entreating, 
nay, commands you to hasten, to run, to fly, to the 
relief of my favorite people, reduced almost to the last 
gasp." Pepin obeyed. The letter from heaven was 
effectual. " The monarch of the first, the best and the 
most deserving of all nations," marched immediately 
with a large army into Italy. Aistulphus was forced 
to surrender a part of his dominions to the Pope, " to 
be forever held and possessed by St. Peter and his law- 
ful successors in the See of Rome." Thus the Pope 
became a temporal sovereign. How mildly Stephen's 
successor, Pius IX., has ruled, let the vote of his sub- 
jects so lately taken testify. If ever a ruler was 
emphatically pronounced a despot, the present Pope 
has been.* 

And to judge from his denunciations of liberty, so 
repeatedly and emphatically made, especially in the 
documents preparatory to the Vatican Council, the 
Italian people are certainly not wide of the mark. 
His pious soul seems inflamed with holy indignation 

* The vote stood : for Dethronement of Pope, 40,805 ; against, 46. 



DESPOTISM 145 

against the present forms of government. "Anarchic 
doctrines/' he affirms, " have taken possession of men's 
minds so universally, that it is not possible now to dis- 
cover a single State in Europe that is not governed 
upon principles hostile to the faith." And this proud 
potentate assumes the right to lord it over princes as 
well as people: "It is not he (the Pope) who has 
given up the State ; it is the State that has revolted 
from him ; the old days of the Passion have returned ; 
the nations will not have this man to rule over them, 
so they give themselves to Caesar."* Nor is this 
embodiment of despotic power, who claims spiritual 
and even temporal dominion over all secular princes, 
any more ready to acknowledge the authority of a 
General Council. Such a Council can convene only at 
his bidding. "And if, under some circumstances, all 
the bishops did meet, and formed themselves into a 
Council, their acts would be null, unless the Pope con- 
sented to them."-)* Even to the decisions of a Council 
properly convoked, the Pope, it is affirmed, is not re- 
quired to submit. "As the Pope is higher than all 
bishops, none of them could have jurisdiction over 
him. . . . Not even of his own choice could he yield 
obedience. . . . He could not submit to their juris- 
diction voluntarily, because his power is a divine 
gift." J Did ever another's power reach so lofty an 
altitude as to render voluntary obedience an absolute 

* " The Year of Preparation for the Vatican Council," p. 18. 
t Idem, p. 12. X Idem, p. 22. 
10 



146 DESPOTISM. 

impossibility ? Even when seated in the Council, sur- 
rounded by those who are nothing more than counsel- 
lors of the supreme judge, his Holiness is still the 
Pope. "He is there as the Pope." "The whole 
authority resides really in himself, for though he com- 
municates of his powers to the assembled Prelates, yet 
he does not divest himself of his own. . . . Thus the 
supreme jurisdiction of the Church never passes away 
from the Supreme Pontiff, and does not even vest in a 
General Council. . . . The reason assigned for this 
lies in the fact that the gift of infallibility is not com- 
municated to the Council, but abides in the Pope." * 
No wonder the Pope so tenderly commends that 
"teaching which makes the Church our Mother, and 
all the faithful little children listening to the voice of 
St. Peter." 

As an appropriate and suggestive conclusion to this 
chapter, we beg the privilege of introducing the reader 
to this lordly potentate, this king of kings, and bishop 
of bishops, this Infallible Judge in faith and morals, 
in the act of proving himself a servant of servants. 
Graphically is the scene described in the Catholic 
World of July, 1870. An eye-witness, evidently and 
certainly a loyal subject of Pius IX., touches the pic- 
ture with an artist's hand. During Holy Week in 
Rome, the bishops of the Vatican Council being pres- 
ent, the Sovereign Pontiff gave proof, to Papists en- 
tirely satisfactory, that he was of all men the humblest. 

* "The Year of Preparation for the Vatican Council," pp. 27, 28. 



DESPOTISM. 147 

On a raised platform, in the full view of several thou- 
sand of his adoring subjects, His Humility prepares 
himself for the ceremony of washing and kissing the 
feet of thirteen pilgrim priests to Home, one a Sene- 
gambian negro. As the voices of the choir, in soul- 
subduing melody, intone, "A new command I give 
you," the humble servant — his head adorned with a 
mitre, typical, we suppose, of the poverty and humble 
station of St. Peter, his predecessor — girds on an apron. 
Before him are the thirteen travellers, dressed in long 
white robes, cut in the style of a thousand years ago, 
and wearing white rimless stove-pipe hats, surmounted 
by tufts. Shoes and stockings spotlessly white com- 
plete the costume of these weary pilgrims from distant 
climes. An attendant, full robed and exceedingly 
dignified, with studied precision, unlaces the brand 
new, stainlessly white shoe, and lets down the immacu- 
late stocking on the right foot of the nearest pilgrim. 
Breathless silence reigns. All eyes are intensely fixed. 
A vessel of water, and span clean towels are handed 
the Pontiff. He washes the instep, wipes it, kisses it, 
and gives the happy possessor a nosegay — minus the 
gold coin of former and better days, when the traffic in 
indulgences was brisk. A murmur of applause, like 
the ripple of many waters, runs through the vast 
cathedral. Another and another instep is washed and 
kissed. " The jet black negro," as a new anthem rings 
through the vast arches of St. Peters, and the assem- 
bled spectators, in an ecstasy of humbled devotion, 



148 DESPOTISM. 

whisper in half-broken accents, " Vive T Infallible" 
finds his instep pressed by the infallible lips of His 
Holiness, the Supreme Judge of all men. The cere- 
mony is ended. During its continuance an hundred 
human beings have gone down to death. Infallibility 
can find no fitter employment than such exhibitions of 
mock humility ! Washing the clean feet, and crushing 
the blackened souls ! ! Feigning the humility of the 
poor, despised, lowly Nazarene, and blasphemously 
claiming the attributes of Deity ! ! ! 




PROCESSION WITH RELICS IN CINCINNATI. 



CHAPTER IV 

FRAUD : — RELICS. 



*2> • ' 

HE coming of the mystery of iniquity, Paul pre- 






dieted, should be not merely with " all power" 
] j?k but with " signs and lying wonders" Could lan- 
guage more accurately describe the countless 
relics which Rome's votaries venerate ? — Lying ivonders. 
Without attempting to furnish a complete list — the 
bare catalogue would make a large octavo volume — we 
present a few, enough to determine the character of all. 
The early Christians, it would seem, must have been 
particularly careful to preserve the bones of their dead. 
In the Cathedral of St. Peter, at Rome, they have an 
arm of St. Lazarus ; a finger and arm of St. Ann, the 
Holy Virgin's Mother; and the head of St. Dennis, 
which he caught up and carried the distance of two 
miles after it had been cut off. In France they have 
four, heads of John the Baptist. In Spain, France, and 
Flanders they have eight arms of St. Matthew ! and 
three of St. Luke ! In the Lateran Church, in Rome, 
they have the entire heads of St. Peter and St. Paul ; 
and in the convent of the St. Augustines, at Bilboa, the 
holy monks have a large part of Peter's head, and the 
Franciscans a large part of Paul's. At Burgos they 



149 



1 50 FRA UD :— RELICS. 

have the tail of Balaam's ass, a part of the body of 
St. Mark, and an arm and finger of St. Ann. At Aix- 
la-Chapelle they have two teeth of St. Thomas; part 
of an arm of St. Simeon ; a tooth of St. Catharine ; a 
rib of St. Stephen ; a shoulder blade and leg bone of 
St. Mary Magdalene ; oil from the bones of St. Eliza- 
beth; bones of Sts. Andrew, James, Matthias, Luke, 
Mark, Timotheus and John the Baptist. Perhaps it is 
for the purpose of carrying all these sacred relics that 
Rome has five legs of the ass upon which our Saviour 
rode into Jerusalem. 

Nor are bones their only precious mementoes. In 
almost every chapel in Europe may be found pieces of 
the cross on which our Lord was crucified. If these 
were all collected, no doubt they would furnish an 
amount of material equal to that contained in one of 
the largest dwellings in America. In Rome they have 
also the cross of the good thief; also the entire table on 
which our Lord celebrated the Paschal Supper. And a 
recent publication, " The Living Eucharist manifested 
by Miracles," assures us, " this is the true table of the 
Lord, that on which the world's Redeemer and God, 
Jesus, offered the first eucharistic sacrifice." And on 
the same authority we learn that at the cathedral of 
Valencia, in Spain, they have " the cup in which His 
blood was first laid, the chalice elevated from the table 
by his divine hands." "At St. Mark's, in Venice," 
says the same author, " the knife used by our Lord in 
touching, not cutting, the bread, is exposed each year, 



FRA UD .—RELICS. 151 

on Holy Thursday for the veneration of the faithful." 
Even the old room, that very upper chamber in Jerusa- 
lem, in which our Lord wrought that miracle of mira- 
cles, transubstantiating the bread into his actual flesh 
and blood, is even now " retained in a tolerable state." 
Fearing that no Protestant can possibly believe men so 
credulous, and that my honesty in reporting these " lying 
toonders " may be called in question, I refer the reader 
to the little tract published in London, A. d. 1869, 
written by George Keating, "The Living Eucharist 
manifested by Miracles." Here he will find what is 
enough to make one shudder with horror as he contem- 
plates the abyss of superstition into which Papists have 
fallen. 

And they have yet more wonderful mementoes than 
bones and wood. In more than one cathedral they 
have specimens of the manna of the wilderness, and a 
few blossoms of Aaron's rod. In Rome they have the 
very ark that Moses made, and the rod by which he 
wrought his miracles. At Gastonbury they have the 
identical stones which the devil tempted our Lord to 
turn into bread. In another of their chapels they have 
the dice employed by the soldiers in casting lots for the 
Saviour's garments. 

They have St. Joseph's axe and saw ; St. Anthony's 
millstone, on which he crossed the sea ; St. Patrick's 
staff, by which he drove out the toads and snakes from 
Ireland; St. Francis' cowl; St. Ann's comb; St. Joseph's 
breeches; St. Mark's boots; "a piece of the Virgin's 



152 htA UD :— RELICS. 

green petticoat;" St. Anthony's toe-nails, and "the 
parings of St. Edmund's toes." 

Then, also, there are in their convents, all carefully 
suspended from the walls, most j)recious relics pre- 
served in hermetically sealed bottles. There is a vial 
of St. Joseph's breath, caught as he was exercising 
himself with the very axe and saw now in their posses- 
sion. There are several vials of the Holy Virgin's 
milk ; and — will you doubt it, poor deluded Protestants ? 
— a small roll of butter and a little piece of cheese made 
from her milk. They have also hair from the heads of 
most of their saints, and twelve combs, one from each 
of the Apostles, with which to dress it. And what is a 
little marvellous, these combs are declared to be 
"nearly as good as new." 

To end our enumeration of her sacred relics ; they 
have a small piece of the rope with which Judas hanged 
himself; "a bit of the finger of the Holy Ghost;" the 
nose of an angel ; " a rib of the "Word made flesh ; " "a 
quantity of the identical rays of the star which led the 
wise men to our infant Saviour;" Christ's seamless 
coat ; two original impressions of his face on two pocket- 
handkerchiefs ; a wing of the archangel Gabriel, obtained 
by the prayers of Pope Gregory VII.; the beard of 
Noah; a piece of the very same porphyry pillar, on 
which the cock perched when he crowed after Peter's 
denial, and even the comb of the cock ; and then the 
pearl of the entire collection, " one of the steps of the 
ladder on which Jacob, in his dream, saw the heavenly 



FRAUD:— RELICS. 153 

host ascending and descending." A recent traveller to 
Rome not merely saw these wonders, but was consider- 
ately and affectionately told that inasmuch as he was a 
" devout man" he could obtain a small portion of these 
precious relics at a moderate price. He was offered a 
feather from Gabriel's wing for twenty-five cents.* 

If we add to the above idolatries, their adoration of 
statues and images and the consecrated wafer, we have 
a system of superstition, such as no Pagan in his wild- 
est vagaries ever dreamed of. And that they do wor- 
ship these relics is, alas, too evident. We speak not 
merely of the ignorant masses, perhaps for their debas- 
ing idolatries the Church is not entirely responsible 
(although this may be fairly questioned, since her 
whole system is, in its very nature, adapted to produce 
the grossest superstition), but we charge this idol wor- 
ship upon the most highly educated of their clergy. 

* A noted Catholic historian tells us that when St. Ambrose needed 
relics with which to consecrate a church at Milan, " immediately his 
heart burned within him, in presage as he felt of what was to 
happen." By a dream he was directed to the spot where he would 
find the bones of St. Gervasius and St. Prostasius. "Having dis- 
covered their skeletons, all their bones entire, a quantity of blood 
about, and their heads separated from their bodies, .... they 
arranged them, covered them with cloths and laid them on litters. 
In this manner they were carried towards evening to the Basilica of 
St. Fausta, where vigils were celebrated all night, and several that 
were possessed received imposition of hands. That day and the next 
there was a great concourse of people, and then the old men recol- 
lected that they had formerly heard the names of these martyrs." 
"Profane and old wives' fables." 



1 54 FRA UD :— RELICS. 

Thomas Aquinas says, " If we speak of the very cross 
on which Christ was crucified, it is to be worshipped 
with divine worship." And the prayers which are to 
be said in the adoration of these sacred bits of wood are 
given in the " Koman Missal." 

" Oh, judgment! thou hast fled to brutish beasts, 
And men have lost their reason." 




CHAPTER V. 

FRAUD : — MIRACLES. 

OME ever has claimed, and does still claim, the 
power of working miracles. One of her most 
eminent historians says : " The Catholic Church 
being always the chaste spouse of Christ, contin- 
uing to bring forth children of heroical sanctity, — God 
fails not in this, any more than in past ages, to illustrate 
her and them by unquestionable miracles." The Rev. 
James Kent Stone, a recent convert to Romanism, in 
his " Invitation Heeded" repeatedly and emphatically 
claims for the Church of his adoption the unquestioned 
ability to work miracles. He even undertakes a de- 
fence of those she has published to the world, affirm- 
ing that they are as credible, nay, in some instances 
more so, than those recorded in the Bible. Here is a 
specimen: — "In 1814, a man who had his back-bone 
broken was made whole by making a pilgrimage to 
Garswood, and there getting the sign of the cross 
made on his back by some unknown priest called Ar- 
rowsmith, who was killed in the wars of Charles I." 
The bull of the Pope assigning a reason why the 
Virgin Magdalene should be canonized, reads thus : 
" Not without good reason with that incorruption and 

155 



156 FRA UD :—MlRA CLES. 

good odor of her body, which continues to this day." 
A " delicious odor" was emitted from her grave. St. 
Patrick sailed to Ireland on a millstone, and drove out 
all the snakes and toads with his staff. 

St. Francis, founder of the Franciscan order of 
monks, who "had no teacher but Christ, and learned 
all by an immediate revelation," and of whom St. 
Bridget had a marvellous vision testifying that "the 
Franciscan rule was not composed by the wisdom of 
men, but by God himself," was, on one occasion, sorely 
tempted by a devil in the form of a beautiful, facin- 
ating lady. On a certain evening, however, when 
again tempted, " he spit in the devil's face." His 
biographer solemnly adds, " Confounded and disgusted 
the devil fled." A miracle ! This same holy St. Fran- 
cis predicted the day of his death, and even after his 
decease wrought miracles by his intercessory prayers. 
He had a vision of a seraph, the effect of which was 
that " His soul was utterly inflamed with seraphic 
ardor, and his body ever after retained the similar 
wounds of Christ." In consequence of these wounds, 
and the miracles he performd, so great became his honor, 
that in Roman books it is written, " Those only were 
saved by the blood of Christ who lived before St. 
Francis; but all that followed were redeemed by the 
blood of St. Francis." 

Miracles were wrought in favor of the Immaculate 
Conception, and miracles were wrought against it. 
And what to Protestants seems strange, Rome confirmed 




ST. FRANCIS RESISTING THE DEVIL. 



Page lit). 



FRA UD :—MIRA CLES. 1 57 

both classes, and canonized those who achieved mir- 
acles in favor of, and those who achieved miracles 
against, this precious doctrine. 

Take another of Rome's unquestionable miracles. St. 
Wenefride being a nun, of course could not marry. 
Her suitor, young Prince Caradoc, in anger at this, cut 
off her head. This gave rise to three miracles : 1. St. 
Beuno caused the earth to open, and young Caradoc 
was swallowed up ; 2. A well opened on the spot where 
the nun's blood was shed, and the holy waters of this 
healing fountain work miracles unto this day; 3. St. 
Beuno placed the nun's head on the bleeding body, 
prayed to the " Mother of Christ, " and behold St. 
Wenefride was immediately restored to life. Who will 
dare to say that these miracles are not far more won- 
derful than any recorded in Scripture? Protestants, 
in their ignorance, may be inclined to call them " lying 
wonders" but Roman infallibility has pronounced them 
" unquestionable miracles ." 

St. Dominic, on one occasion, during a dreadful 
tempest, exhorted the inhabitants of Toulouse to ap- 
pease the wrath of heaven by reciting their prayers. 
The arm of the wooden image of the Virgin in the 
church was raised in a threatening attitude. " Hear 
me," shouted St. Dominic, "that arm will not be 
withdrawn till you have obeyed my commands." The 
terrified worshippers instantly set to work, counting 
their beads. Dominic, satisfied with their spiritual 
devotions, gave the order, and the arm of wrath im- 



158 FRA UD :—MIRA CLES. 

mediately fell. The storm abated. The thunder and 
lightning ceased. 

The blood of St. Januarius, preserved in a small 
bottle at Naples, is wont to liquefy, and sometimes boil, 
when exposed to the adoration of the faithful. This 
miracle, Protestants might be excused from believing, 
especially as on one occasion, when it refused to dissolve 
because the French soldiers occupied the kingdom, it 
afterwards concluded to do so, inasmuch as the Yicar of 
the bishops received this order from the French Com- 
mander : " If in ten minutes St. Januarius should not 
perform his usual miracle, the whole city shall be re- 
duced ip ashes." The obstinate saint came to terms ! 
The blood boiled furiously ! 

But perhaps some one may be inclined to question 
whether miracles so preposterously absurd are now 
offered to the faith of Papists. Possibly some, by read- 
ing " The Aspirations of Nature," a work written to 
make converts to Catholicism, may imagine that Koman- 
ists are less credulous, less superstitious, less blindly 
bigoted now than in the middle ages. For the benefit 
of such we refer to miracles whose long drawn accounts 
are to be found in books now issuing, in this very 
country, under the official and authoritative endorse- 
ment of Rome. In the " Living Eucharist manifested 
by Miracles," the infallible, authoritative, apostolic 
Church, the unerring teacher of divine truth, in this 
nineteenth century actually records some twenty or 
more miracles wrought in proof of the real presence. 



FRA UD :—MIRA CLES. 159 

Bishops, priests and nuns, we are solemnly told, cer- 
tainly saw the wafer, after the benediction of the priest, 
changed into an infant. The bread became real flesh 
and blood, a perfect infant, Jesus himself. In one case 
a priest was seen laying a beautiful babe, Jesus, on the 
tongue of each communicant. Wafers carried several 
days in the pocket of a bishop, on being blessed became 
little infants. Did ever blasphemy and irreverence 
equal this ? Dogmatically affirming that the testimony 
of the senses is not to be taken in matters of faith, 
Papists endeavor to establish a doctrine which is in 
itself so repugnant to reason that one would suppose 
none but an idiot could believe it. And this publica- 
tion has the sanction of Papal infallibility. Now, there- 
fore, heretics, doubt no longer. Believe that the priest 
creates a god, worships him, and then eats him. Presume 
not to smile at this precious doctrine of transubstantia- 
tion, this sublime mystery, which the Kev. James Kent 
Stone (who in a short fifteen months passed from a public 
defender of Episcopacy to a most ardent advocate of the 
Papacy) affirms is a doctrine so spiritual that purblind 
Protestants cannot be expected to comprehend it. 

Another tract, published in London, " The Miracle 
of Liege, by the use of the water from the fountain of 
Our Lady of Lourdes," deserves attention. This also 
can be purchased in almost any Catholic bookstore. 
" Mr. Hanquet's Narrative." — He was taken, he affirms, 
extremely ill in 1862. Continuing to grow worse, in 
July 1864 sitting up even for a few momemts was 



160 FRA UD :—MIRA CLES. 

an impossibility. In 1867, ulcers, erysipelas, "a back 
bent like a bow," " a chest like a fiery oven," and " blood- 
less withered legs," rendered life a burden. The physi- 
cian affirmed : " I find symptons of almost all diseases." 
In 1869 all hope of recovery faded away. His brother, 
however, on Oct. 13th, found in a bookstore the account 
of Our Lady of Lourdes. Already the dying man was 
praying most importunately to the Mother of God, 
Blessed Lady, Mary Immaculate. A bottle of water 
was sent for. A glass of it was poured down the throat 
of the dying man. Mary's aid was invoked. For an 
instant the death rattle was heard; then one bound, 
and the man, well and strong, seized his hat and went 
out doors wholly restored. A miracle indeed ! ! ! And 
this, my dear Protestant friend, has the sanction of 
Papal infallibility. Who will not henceforth pray with 
devout Hanquet : " Holy Yirgin, deign to ask for me 
from your divine Son that grace which is best for me, 
to die, to suffer or to be cured," especially the last, to be 
cured ? This wonderful account of a very remarkable 
miracle — unless you are sacrilegious enough to call it 
one of Rome's lying wonders — this incontestable proof 
of the efficacy of prayer to the Blessed Virgin, you can 
make your own for twelve cents. This in the year 
1870, and in New York. 

M. C. Kavanagh, in her catechism and instructions' 
for confession designed for very young children, having 
heartily commended the patience of St. Joseph, who, 
when a little lad, though bathed in tears, officered no 



FR A UD i—MIRA CLES. 161 

reproach to those destroying his highly prized little 

garden (tradition, i. e. fiction pure and simple), our 

authoress gives, by way of enforcing the duty of 

penance, " a story of Our Blessed Lady." Little Mary 

when three or four years old, informed the priest that 

she had imposed upon herself penances, to eat no fruit 

except one kind, to drink no wine or vinegar of which 

she was very fond, to eat no meat or fish, and to rise 

three times in the night to pray. Heartily do we join 

in the ejaculation of the narrator, " This at the age of 

three years!" We certainly think that the dogma of 

infallibility is really needed. How otherwise could 

such a dose as this be forced down even a Papist's 

throat. The second instruction closes with this pious 

admonition: "Do not fail to pray to Our Lady and St. 

Jeseph to help you." Fed upon such food, is it any 

wonder that the children of our Catholic fellow-citizens 

grow up in the grossest ignorance, in superstition that 

would disgrace a heathen in Central Africa ? 

But the third instruction contains the gem, " a true 

miracle." Only five years ago, in a village of France 

(how unfortunate, these miracles always occur in. some 

distant land), there resided a certain cure. Among 

those who came to him was a gentleman who had great 

temptations against faith in the Blessed Eucharist. 

(Not so unreasonable when he was asked to believe, 

contrary to the testimony of his senses, that bread was 

flesh.) One day, as this doubter came to communion, 

the sacred host left the hands of the cure and placed 
11 



162 FRA UD :—MIRA CLES. 

itself on the tongue of the gentleman. Our authoress, 
in holy fervor exclaims, " What a miracle of love ! " 
And we are impious enough to respond, What a trans- 
parent falselwod ! 

Obedience is a Christian duty which certainly ought 
to be commended to children. Here is Rome's way of 
enjoining it. St. Frances whilst saying the office of 
Our Lady, which she did daily (how adroitly Mary's 
worship is commended), was called by her servant. 
Leaving her prayers she attended to the request. Re- 
turning, scarcely had she begun the psalm when she 
was called a second time. Without loss of patience 
again she left her book to obey the command. Just 
after she had resumed her prayers for the third time 
her husband called. Leaving all, she ran to him. Re- 
turning, what was her surprise to find the words, writ- 
ten in letters of gold : " Now, therefore, dear children, 
always obey the calls of duty." 

Lengthy as our list has become, we cannot pass the 
two hundred or more remarkable miracles contained in 
the ever-memorable book, so celebrated in Catholic com- 
munities, " The Glories of Mary," by St. Alphonsus 
Liguori.* This book was never intended for Protestant 
eyes. The original having been carefully examined, 
and every line, even every word found in perfect har- 
mony with the doctrines of Holy Mother, and the trans- 
lation in like manner "expurgated" approved and 

* A life of this saint, in four vols , by Cardinal Yillecourt, has been 
recently published. 



FRA UD :—MIRA CLES. 163 

earnestly commended to the faithful, the work was 
introduced " with the hope that it might be found to 
retain the spirit of the learned and saintly author, and 
be welcomed by the devout in this country with the 
same delight which it has universally called forth in 
Catholic Europe." Whatever miracles are herein found 
may therefore be taken as duly attested and approved 
by Papal infallibility. Here is one. A gentleman 
devoted to Blessed Mary was accustomed often in the 
night to repair to the oratory of his palace to bow in 
prayer to an image of the Virgin. His wife, jealous 
and angered, asked him, " Have you ever loved any 
other woman but me?" He replied, "I love the most 
amiable lady in the world ; to her I have given my 
whole heart," meaning Mary (?) The wife still more 
suspicious asked, " When you arise and leave the room, 
is it to meet this lady?" "Yes." "Deceived and 
blinded by passion," this wife, one night during her 
husband's long absence, " cut her throat and very soon 
died." The heart-broken husband on learning this, 
implored help of Mary's image. No sooner was this 
done than the living wife, throwing herself at his feet, 
bathed in tears, exclaimed, "Oh, my husband, the 
Mother of God, through thy prayers, has delivered me 
from hell" 

" The next day the husband made a feast, and the 
wife told her relatives the facts, and showed the marks 
of the wound." Now, heretics, doubt if you dare. 

Let us have one in the exact language of " the 



164 FRA Up :—MIR A CLES. 

learned and saintly author." " There lived in the city 
of Aragona a girl named Alexandra, who, being noble 
and very beautiful, was greatly loved by two young 
men. Through jealousy, they one day fought and 
killed each other. Their enraged relatives, in return, 
killed the poor young girl, as the cause of so much 
trouble, cut off her head, and threw her into a well. 
A few days after, St. Dominic was passing through 
that place, and, inspired by the Lord, approached the 
well, and said : i Alexandra, come forth,' and immedi- 
ately the head of the deceased came forth, placed 
itself on the edge of the well, and prayed St. Dominic 
to hear its confession. The Saint heard its confession, 
and also gave it communion, in presence of a great 
concourse of persons who had assembled to witness the 
miracle. Then St. Dominic ordered her to speak, and 
tell why she had received that grace. Alexandra 
answered, that when she was beheaded, she was in a 
state of mortal sin, but that the most Holy Mary, on 
account of the rosary, which she was in the habit of 
reciting, had preserved her in life. Two days the 
head retained its life upon the edge of the well, in the 
presence of all, and then the soul went to purgatory. 
But fifteen days after, the soul of Alexandra appeared 
to St. Dominic, beautiful and radiant as a star, and 
told him that one of the principal sources of relief to 
the souls in purgatory is the rosary which is recited 
for them ; and that, as soon as they arrive in paradise, 
they pray for those who apply to them these powerful 




ALEXANDRA'S HEAD CONFESSING. 



FRA UD :—MIRA CLES. 165 

prayers. Having said this, St. Dominic saw that 
happy soul ascending in triumph to the kingdom of 
the blessed." — " Glories of Mary/' American Ed., p. 274. 

Of others we have merely time to give the briefest 
outline. Mary's image furnishes written prayers to a 
penitent (p. 76) ; rescues a condemned murderer from 
the gallows (p. 78) ; bows to a murderer (p. 213) ; be- 
comes and continues a nun fifteen years, in order to 
shield a devotee who wilfully deserted the paths of 
virtue (p. 224) ; leaves a church during the trial, con- 
demnation and beheading of an infamous bishop (p. 
391) ; speaks to a young man about to commit sin 
(p. 559), etc., etc., almost ad infinitum. 

Blessed Mary herself cools the cheek of a dying de- 
votee with a fan (p. 110) ; with a cloth wipes the death 
damp from the brow of " a good woman " dying in a 
home of poverty (p. 112) ; secures from the devil a 
paper given by an abandoned sinner containing a writ- 
ten renunciation of God (p. 198) ; furnishes a letter to 
one of her ardent admirers (the same lady had enter- 
tained her admirers all night in "rooms richly fur- 
nished and perfumed as with an odor of paradise ! ") 
(p. 454) ; burns an inn in which her children were 
. sinning (five of the rescued affirm, on oath, that Mary, 
the Blessed Virgin, lighted the flames) (p. 659) ; by a 
second revelation of herself restores sight to one eye of 
a man who had regularly bargained with her for total 
blindness, if he might be permitted twice to behold 
her (p. 512). 



166 FRA UD :—MIRA CLES. 

By the assistance of Our Lady, an ape becomes and 
declares himself a devil, and at the command of a 
priest goes through a hole in the wall, which hole no 
mechanical genius ' could fill up (p. 251) ; a man in 
spirit form comes to his friend and says, My dead 
body is in the street, my soul in purgatory, and I am 
here (p. 265) ; at the repetition of the magic rosary 
devils have been known to leave wretched men 
(p. 683). There, that is a dose sufficient for any Pro- 
testant stomach ! If any, however, desire more, there 
are plenty in the " Glories of Mary." Don't the 
immutable Church need the dogma of infallibility? 
Barring the sense of shame for our race produced by 
such exhibitions of moral depravity and mental weak- 
ness, these "examples" are more interesting and cer- 
tainly far more startling than the most exciting modern 
novel. And they are published as truth, approved by 
Papal inerrancy, earnestly commended to the devout, 
believed by Papists! They are sold in New York, 
Philadelphia, Baltimore, and all large towns — sold in 
this nineteenth century, and in educated, enlightened, 
civilized, Christianized America ! Can a republic long 
rest secure on a foundation of superstition? Judged 
by such literature, the present must indeed be the 
world's midnight of ignorance! Did the dark ages 
produce anything more grossly absurd? And Rome 
anathematizes the times because there are some men so 
heretical, so unprecedentedly blasphemous as to make 
jest of such absurdities. 



- FRAUD:— MIRACLES. 167 

May we not apply to Popery the words of Pollok ? 

" The hypocrite in mask ! He was a man 
Who stole the livery of the court of heaven 
To serve the devil in." 

If any desire to see the account of a recent miracle, 
with all the embellishments, drawn out " ad nauseam" 
we refer them to "Our Lady of Lourdes, by Henri 
Lasserre," found in the Catholic World (September, 
October, November, December, 1870, and January, 
February, March, and April, 1871). 

At a grotto near Lourdes, in France, a poor, simple- 
minded, invalid, fourteen-year-old shepherdess, who 
could neither read nor write,. knowing almost nothing 
except the superstitious use of Mary's rosary, had, we 
are gravely informed, daily visions, for more than two 
weeks, of the Blessed Virgin, and gave accurate, full, 
elegant descriptions of her dress, features and beauty. 
The honored recipient of Mary's favors, Bernadette, 
so named for her patron, St. Bernard, saw the heavenly 
vision, though no single observer of a vast crowd was 
able to see anything save the barren rock and the 
climbing eglantine; and heard words from lips seem- 
ingly lisping prayers for poor sinners as her fingers 
counted the beads of her glittering rosary. After days 
of ecstatic beholding, this wonderful message was sent 
from the " Queen of Heaven and Earth," by the vision- 
beholding Bernadette, to the priests — those prudent 
men who received the current rumors of the wildly 
excited populace with dignified silence, looks of disap- 



168 FRA UD .—MIR A CLES. 

probation, and words of suspicion — " Go tell the priests 
that I icant a chapel built on this spot." When these 
words were spoken in ordinary tone, in the midst of 
several thousand breathless spectators of Bernadette's 
transfiguration, no ear caught the sound save that of 
the little, ignorant, simple-minded, pale-faced, nervous 
peasant girl. 

At a subsequent vision this command was received : 
" Go drink and wash at the fountain, and eat of the 
herbs growing at its side." Fountain? — there was 
none. Bernadette, however, essaying obedience, walked 
on her knees over the rocks, and into the furthest 
corner of the grotto. As she dug up the earth with 
her hands a fountain sprung up. This, which has 
since flowed unceasingly for thirteen years and wrought 
miracles innumerable, possessed, from its first outgush- 
ing, miraculous healing properties. A quarryman, 
rubbing his blinded eye with the first water that filled 
the cavity, and kneeling in prayer to the Blessed 
Virgin, " immediately uttered a loud cry and began to 
tremble in violent excitement." " Cured." " Impossi- 
ble," said the physician. "It is the Holy Virgin," 
said the devout Catholic. Many arose from beds to 
which they had been confined for years. Paralyzed 
limbs were instantaneously restored. Sores were cured. 
Deaf ears were unstopped. A dying child — the shroud 
already made — plunged by its mother into "the icy 
cold fountain,"* and held there for more than fifteen 

* It was February, 1858. 



JFRA UD :—MIRA CLES. 169 

minutes, was completely restored to health, and the 
next day, in the absence of the parents, " left the 
cradle and walked around the room," its first effort at 
walking ! Eemarkable baby ! Wonderful water ! One 
morning, says the author, twenty thousand, many of 
whom had spent the previous night at the grotto, wit- 
nessed, in rapt silence, the ecstasy of the little saint. 
Even if the waters had wrought no miracles, supersti- 
tious faith might have manufactured at least one or two 
tolerably decent counterfeits. So we think. So evidently 
thought the Editor of the Ere Imperiale, a local paper. 

" Do not be surprised," said the organ of the Pre- 
fecture (Catholic), "if there are still some people who 
persist in maintaining that the child is a saint, and 
gifted with supernatural powers. These people be- 
lieve the following stories : — 

" 1st. That a dove hovered the day before yesterday 
over the head of the child during the whole time of 
the ecstasy.* 

"2d. That she breathed upon the eyes of a little 
blind girl, and restored her sight. 

" 3d. That she cured another child whose arm was 
paralyzed. 

"4th. That a peasant of the Valley of Campan, 
having declared that he could not be duped by such 
scenes of hallucination, his sins had, in answer to her 
prayers, been turned into snakes, which had devoured 
him, not leaving a trace of his impious body. 

* March 4th, A. D. 1858. 



1 70 FRA UD :—MIRA CLES. 

" This, then, is what we have come to, but what we 
would not have come to if the parents of this girl had 
followed the advice of the physicians, who recom- 
mended that she should be sent to the lunatic 
asylum" 



CHAPTER VI. 

IDOLATRY. 

|T was against the worship of idols that the early 
^o\\ Christians most solemnly and most determinedly 
^ protested. " We Christians/' says Origen, " have 
nothing to do with images, on account of the 
second commandment ; the first thing we teach those 
who come to us is to despise idols and images ; it being 
the peculiar characteristic of the Christian religion to 
raise our minds above images, agreeably to the law 
which God himself has given to mankind." * And 
Gibbon affirms, " The primitive Christians were pos- 
sessed with an unconquerable repugnance to the use 
and abuse of images." f Again : " The public worship 
of the Christians was uniformly simple and spiritual." 

Most cunningly was this spirituality undermined and 
idolatry substituted. In the early part of the fourth 
century, after the subversion of Paganism, some bishops 
began to encourage the use of pictures and images as 
aids to the devotion and instruction of the ignorant. 
Even till the time of Gregory it was the prevalent 
opinion that, if used at all, images must be used merely 



* rt Origen against Celsus," lib. v. 7. 
f "Decline and Fall," chap. xlix. 



171 



172 IDOLATRY. 

as books for the unlearned. The Pontiff, however, so 
far encouraged their erection that almost every church 
in the west could boast of at least one. Before these 
the multitude soon learned to bow ; to these they of- 
fered prayers. 

So disgusting became this growing superstition that 
in 700 the Council of Constantinople solemnly con- 
demned the use of images, and ordered their expulsion 
from the churches. But in 713 Pope Constantine pro- 
nounced an anathema against those who " deny that 
veneration to the holy images which the Church has 
appointed." A few years later began that famous con- 
troversy between the Emperor Leo and Gregory II. 
which continued to distract the Church for more than 
fifty years. The Emperor and his successors, Constan- 
tine V., and Leo IV., strenuously endeavored to restore 
Christianity to its primitive purity. Gregory II., and 
the Popes succeeding him, with a zeal bordering on 
fanaticism, undertook a defence of image-worship. The 
Emperors were charged with ignorance, rudeness, pride, 
contempt of the authority of the sovereign Pontiff, and 
opposition to the teachings of the Church. Defying the 
wrath of the Pope, however, and encouraged by the 
unanimous decision of the Seventh Greek Council (a. d. 
754), which condemned idolatry, Constantine V. burned 
the images and demolished the walls of the churches 
bearing painted representations of Christ, of the Virgin, 
and of the saints. The efforts of his son, Leo IV., 
were directed to the same end. But the Emperor dying 



IDOLATRY. 173 

suddenly — as "is generally supposed from the effects of 
poison administered by his wife, Irene — the contest ended 
in a victory for the image-worshippers. Irene, prompted 
by a desire to occupy the throne, ordered her own 
son, Constantine VI., to be seized and his eyes put out. 
The order was faithfully executed, and with such cru- 
elty that the unhappy son almost immediately expired. 
To this wretched and terribly brutal woman Papists 
are deeply indebted. Assisted by Pope Adrian, she ex- 
tended idolatry throughout the entire empire, and in 
787 summoned a Council at Nice, which decreed "That 
holy images of the cross should be consecrated, and put 
on the sacred vessels and vestments, and upon walls 
and boards, in private houses and in public ways. And 
especially that there should be erected images of the 
Lord God, our Saviour Jesus Christ, of our blessed 
Lady, the Mother of God, of the venerable angels, and 
of all the saints. And that whosoever should presume 
to think or teach otherwise, or to throw away any 
painted books, or the figure of the cross, or any image, 
or picture, or any genuine relics of the martyrs, they 
should, if bishops or clergymen, be deposed, or if monks 
or laymen, be excommunicated." * 

Owing a debt of gratitude to Irene, Papists have en- 
deavored to defend her monstrous wickedness. Unable 
to deny the cruelties practised upon her son, they at- 
tempt to justify them, nay, even to commend them, 
applauding her for so far overcoming the feelings of 

* Plotina's " Lives of the Popes." 



174 IDOLATRY. 

humanity, through love for the true Church and its 
honored doctrines, that she could sacrifice her own son, 
who stood in the way of her aiding in the establishment 
of image-worship.* 

From that day to the present idolatry has been one 
of Rome's chief characteristics. It is now so intimately 
interwoven with her forms of worship as to defy all 
opposition. Most probably it will hold its place until 
the prophecy of John finds fulfilment, "Babylon, the 
great, is fallen, is fallen" 

Nor are their images confined to churches and 
chapels. They are also set up by the road-side. In 
Popish countries, and especially in Italy, these images, 
fit successors of the old Roman gods that presided over 
the highways, are frequently to be met with. As the 
traveller passes, he uncovers his head, and reverently 
bows, or, time permitting, turns aside to kneel before 
the idol and implore a blessing. Did ever heathenism 
more unblushingly offer insult to common sense ? 

As our space will not permit an extended reference 
to the monstrous falsehoods, intrigues, and deceptions 
by which the priesthood succeeded in securing for these 
images the devout homage of the multitude, and the 
treasury of the Church the rich gifts so much coveted, 

* "An execrable crime," says Baronius, "had she not been 
prompted to it by zeal for justice. On that consideration she even 
deserved to be commended for what she did. In more ancient times, 
the hands of parents were armed, by God's command, against their 
children worshipping strange gods, and they who killed them were 
commended by Moses." 



IDOLATRY. 175 

we must content ourselves with calling attention to one 
or two specimens. In the " Master Key to Popery," 
by Anthony Gavin, we have an historical account of 
the " Virgin of Pillar," an image religiously worshipped 
in Saragossa, Spain. The Apostle St. James, the ac- 
count informs us, with seven new converts, came to 
preach the Gospel in Saragossa. While sleeping upon 
the brink of a river, an army of angels came down from 
heaven with an image on a pillar, which they placed 
on the ground, saying, u This image of Our Queen shall 
be the defence of this city. By her help it shall be re- 
duced to your Master's sway. As she is to protect 
you, you must build a decent chapel for her." The 
order was obeyed. A chapel was built, which became 
the richest in Spain.* 

The crucifix of St. Salvador, when there is great 
need of rain and the barometer indicates a speedy 
change, is sometimes carried through the streets, while 

* For " Our Lady of Pillar " a chaplain was provided, whose busi- 
ness it was to dress the image every morning. Through him, the 
Virgin Lady once addressed a solemn admonition to the people of 
Saragossa, accusing them of illiberality, want of devotion, and the 
basest ingratitude, and expressing her determination to resign her 
government to Lucifer, unless the people should come for the space 
of fifteen days, every day with gifts, tears, and penitence, to appease 
her wrath and secure a return of her favor. They were exhorted to 
come with prodigal hands and true hearts, lest the Prince of Darkness 
should be appointed to reign over them. They were also assured that 
from this sentence there was no appeal, not even to the tribunal of 
the Most High. This device, enriching the Church, nearly beggared 
the inhabitants of the threatened city. 



176 IDOLATRJ. 

the accompanying priests sing the litany and repeat 
prayers, imploring rain. This well-timed ceremony is 
almost invariably followed, within a few days, by rain. 
All exclaim, "A miracle wrought by our Holy Crucifix." 
Not to multiply instances, we have the authority of 
Pope Gregory for affirming that wonders and miracles 
wrought by images are by no means rare. In an epistle 
addressed to the Empress Constantina, who had re- 
quested from him the head of St. Paul, for the purpose 
of enshrining it in the church which she was erecting 
in his honor, the successor of St. Peter says : " Great 
sadness has possessed me, because you have enjoined 
upon me those things which I neither can, nor dare 
do ; for the bodies of the holy Apostles, Peter and Paul, 
are so resplendent with miracles and terrific prodigies 
in their own churches, that no one can approach them 
without awe, even for the purpose of adoring them. 
. . . . The superior of the place having found 
some bones that were not at all connected with that 
tomb ; and having presumed to disturb them and re- 
move them to some other place, he was visited by cer- 
tain frightful apparitions and died suddenly. . . . 
Be it known to you that it is the custom of the Ko- 
mans, when they give any relics, not to venture to 
touch any portion of the body; only they put into a 
box a piece of linen, which is placed near the holy 
body; then it is withdrawn and shut up with due vene- 
ration in the church which is to be dedicated, and as 
many prodigies are wrought by it as if the bodies 



IDOLATRY. 177 

themselves had been carried thither But 

that your religious desire may not be wholly frustrated, 
I will hasten to send you some parts of those chains 
which St. Paul wore on his neck and hands, if indeed 
I shall succeed in getting off any filings from them." * 

So, dear Empress Constantina, be it known to you, 
that Eome will not part with the hen that lays the 
golden egg, nor even allow you, much less the infidel 
world, to examine the nest. These holy bodies are sur- 
rounded by a more sacred divinity than doth hedge a 
king. Death is the penalty of approaching them un- 
bidden by the infallible Pope. He will sell you relics 
— linen rags and iron filings — which will work as 
great wonders as the head you so much covet. No 
doubt of it!!! 

Notwithstanding the distinction made by Komanists 
between absolute and relative, proper and improper 
worship, between latria, dulia, and hyperdulia, there 
can be no doubt they offer to these images an idolatrous 
homage. Devised evidently for the sole purpose of 
warding off the charge so frequently brought against 
them, of offering to pictures, images and relics that 
adoration due to Deity alone, this hair-splitting distinc- 
tion has no influence in modifying the worship of the 
vast mass of Home's devotees. The images are the 
real objects worshipped. 

One of the ablest expounders of Papal doctrines 

* u Gregory's Epistles," lib. iv. epist. 30. A large part of the origi- 
nal may be found in "Greseler," vol. i. p. 350. 
12 



178 IDOLATRY. 

says : — " From God, as its source, the worship with 
which we honor relics, originates, and to God, as its 
end, it ultimately and terminatively reverts." As- 
suredly the worship w T hich originates with God, and 
returns ultimately to God, must be that true and 
proper homage due to him alone. 

In proof that Papists offer adoration to images, we 
refer to the custom of serenading, on Christmas morn- 
ing, all the statues of the Holy Virgin in the streets 
of Rome. The reason assigned for this grand musical 
entertainment is that the Virgin is a great lover and 
an excellent judge of good music. 

A recent visitor to the church erected about the 
house where it is said Blessed Mary was born, saw 
miserable women, very personifications of gross super- 
stition, dragging themselves on their knees around the 
venerated building, counting beads, kissing the marble 
foundations, repeating prayers before the idol, and order- 
ing masses to be said for the benefit of themselves and 
friends. Disgusting beggars, trafficking in superstition, 
clamorously promise to supplicate the idol on behalf of 
those who favor them with alms. Dealers in the im- 
plements of devotion hawk their sacred wares, rosaries, 
pictures, medals, and casts of the Madonna. 

Certainly no one except an idolater will deny that real 
homage is offered when the worshipper, bowing before 
an image, hymns its praises, and to it offers his prayers. 
Papists indeed say, " We do not worship the image, 
but the personage represented, not the statue, but the 




WOMEN CREEPING INTO CHURCH. 



IDOLATRY. 179 

Virgin, not the cross, but the Saviour suspended 
thereon." Gregory III., in writing to the Emperor 
Leo, says : — " You say we adore stones, walls, and 
boards. It is not so, my Lord; but these symbols 
make us recollect the persons whose names they bear, 
and exalt our grovelling minds." Intelligent Pagans 
have ever rendered precisely the same excuse.* They 
who knelt before the shrine of Jupiter, claimed that 
they were worshipping the invisible and spiritual by 
means of the visible and material. Those in India 
who now worship the images of Gaudama, do the same. 
Are we then to believe that there are not, never have 
been, and never can be, persons so degraded as to be 
properly denominated idolaters? Have all who em- 
ployed images been capable of fully appreciating this 
sentimental distinction ? Has not even superstitious 
ignorance worshipped the seen and forgotten the 

* Plutarch, in explaining the worship of Egypt's two most famous 
deities, Osiris and Isis, holds the following language : — " Philoso- 
phers honor the image of God wherever they find it, even in inani- 
mate beings, and consequently more in those which have life. We 
are therefore to approve, not the worshippers of these animals, but 
those who, by their means, ascend to the Deity ; they are to be con- 
sidered as so many mirrors, which nature holds forth, and in which 
the Supreme Being displays himself in a wonderful manner ; or as so 
many instruments, which he makes use of to manifest outwardly his 
incomprehensible wisdom. Should men, therefore, for the embellish- 
ing of statues, amass together all the gold and precious stones in the 
world, the worship must not be referred to (he statues, for the Deity 
does not exist in colors artfully disposed, nor in frail matter destitute 
of sense and motion." 



130 IDOLATRY. 

unseen ? Admitting that in the Papal Church only the 
less gross idolatry exists, is this justifiable ? Is it not 
condemned in Scripture ? The prohibition reads : — 
" Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or 
any likeness of any thing." There has been given us, 
in the person of Jesus Christ, a visible image of the 
invisible God. Bowing before him, and crying, " My 
Lord and my God," we worship the seen, God in human 
form, " the likeness of the Father" " the express image 
of his person" and yet are not idolaters. Having so 
far accomodated himself to the constitution of our 
nature, he allows no other object to come between him- 
self and the penitent heart. 

Among Rome's numerous idolatries, none certainly 
is more conspicuous, none more ardently advocated, 
none less inexcusable than the adoration offered to the 
Virgin. Her mere titles, as found in that ever-famous 
book, " The Glories of Mary," * and in her litany, a 
solemn supplicatory prayer, would fill more than a 
page of our present volume. She is denominated 
Queen of heaven, of earth, of mercy, of angels, of patri- 
archs, of prophets, of apostles, of martyrs, of confessors, 
of virgins, and of all saints ; Mother of God, of peni- 
tents, and especially of obdurate and abandoned sin- 
ners ; Eavisher of heart, finder of grace, hope of salva- 
tion, defence of the faithful, helper of sinners; our 

* Translated from the Italian of St. Alphonsus Liguori. ISTew 
York : Cath. Pub. House ; approved of -f John, Archbishop, January 
21, 1852. 



IDOLATRY. 18X 

only advocate/ our refuge, our protection, our health, 
our life, our hope, our soul, our heart, our mistress, our 
lady, our loving mother; secure salvation, Redeemer 
of the world, Virgin of virgins, Mother undefiled, un- 
violated, most pure, most chaste, most amiable, most 
admirable, most prudent, most venerable, most power- 
ful, most merciful, most faithful; mirror of justice, seat 
of wisdom, cause of joy, spiritual vessel, vessel of 
honor, mystical rose, tower of David, house of gold, 
ark of the covenant, gate of heaven, morning star, 
comfort of the afflicted, etc., etc. 

Liguori, since enrolled as a saint, mainly as the 
reward of his untiring efforts to supplant love of the 
Creator by love of the creature, boldly and unquali- 
fiedly asserts that Mary co-operated in the original 
work of redemption : — 

" When God saw the great desire of Mary to devote herself to 
the salvation of men, he ordained that by the sacrifice and offer- 
ing of the life of this same Jesus, she might co-operate with him in 
the work of our salvation, and thus become mother of our souls." 
(P. 43, American Ed.) 

" God could indeed, as St. Anselm asserts, create the world from 
nothing ; but when it was lost by sin, he could not redeem it 
without the co-operation of Mary." (P. 186.) 

He also asserts that Mary is the only fountain of 
life and salvation. " God has ordained that all graces' 
should come to us through the hands of Mary." 
(P. 13.) And how is this proved? In true Catholic 
style, by authority. St. Augustine mentions Mary's 
name and affirms, " All the tongues of men would not 



182 IDOLATRY. 

be sufficient to praise her as she deserves." St. Bona- 
venture declares, " those who are devoted to publishing 
6 The Glories of Mary' are secure of paradise." Did 
these fathers ever make these assertions? And if 
they did, is assertion proof? These two questions re- 
morselessly pressed would leave all Liguori's fine-spun 
arguments floating together distractedly in an ocean of 
balderdash. And here is a second kind of proof, 
Rome's clinching argument, a miracle— each section of 
the book has one, besides the eighty-nine additional. 
In the revelation of St. Bridget, we are told that Bishop 
Emingo, being accustomed to begin his sermons with 
the praises of Mary, the Virgin one day appeared to 
St. Bridget, and said : " Tell that bishop I will be his 
mother, and he shall die a good death." He died like 
a saint. Now, therefore, all you Catholics bow the 
knee and repeat one of St. Liguori's prayers to the 
Virgin. You have a fine selection from which to 
choose, well nigh a hundred. But the chief proof 
here, as elsewhere, is assertion. Here are a few 
specimens : — 

" The kingdom of God consisting of justice and mercy, the Lord 
has divided it : he has reserved the kingdom of justice for himself, 
and he has granted the kingdom of mercy to Mary, ordaining that 
all the mercies which are dispensed to men should pass through the 
hands of Mary, and should be bestowed according to her good 
pleasure." (Pp. 27, 28.) 

" St. Bernard asks : ' Why does the Church name Mary Queen 
of Mercy?' And answers : ' Because we believe that she opens the 
depths of the mercy of God, to whom she will, when she will, and as 



IDOLATRY. 183 

she will; so that' not even the vilest sinner is lost if Mary protects 
him: " (P. 31.) 

" In Mary we shall find every hope. ... In a word, we shall 
find in Mary life and eternal salvation:* (Pp. 173, 174.) 

" For this reason, too, she is called the gate of heaven by the 
Holy Church. ... St. Bonaventure, moreover, says that Mary is 
called the gate of heaven, because no one can enter heaven if he 
does not pass through Mary, who is the door of it" (P. 177.) 

" Richard, of St. Laurence, says : ' Our salvation is in the hands 
of Mary.' . . . Cassian absolutely affirms that the salvation of the 
whole world depends upon the favor and protection of Mary." 
(P. 190.) 

" O how many, exclaims the Abbot of Celles, who merit to be 
condemned by the Divine justice, are saved by the mercy of Mary ! 
for she is the treasure of God, and the treasurer of all graces; 
therefore it is, that our salvation is in her hands." (P. 300.) 

" Thou hast a merit that has no limits, and an entire power over 
all creatures. Thou art the mother of God, the mistress of the 
world, the Queen of heaven. Thou art the dispenser of all graces, 
the glory of the Holy Church." (P. 673.) [The italics are ours.] 

He assures his readers that Mary is omnipotent : — 

" Do not say that thou canst not aid me, for I know that thou 
art omnipotent, and dost obtain whatsoever thou desirest from God." 
(P. 78.) 

" Says St. Peter Damian, ' The Virgin has all power in heaven 
and on earth.'" (P. 201.) 

" Yes, Mary is omnipotent, adds Richard, of St. Laurence, since 
the Queen, by every law, must enjoy the same privileges as the 
King. . . . And St. Antoninus says : ' God has placed the whole 
Church, not only under the patronage, but also under the dominion 
of Mary/" (P. 203.) 

Infallibility has also approved these assertions of her 

canonized saint : — 



184 IDOLATRY. 

" Xot only Most Holy Mary is Queen of heaven and of the 
saints, but also of hell and of the devils ; for she has bravely tri- 
umphed over them by her virtues. From the beginning of the 
world God predicted to the infernal serpent the victory and the 
empire which our Queen would obtain over him, when he an- 
nounced to him that a woman would come into the world who 
should conquer him." (P. 155.) " Mary, then, is this great and 
strong woman who has conquered the devil, and crushed his head 
by subduing his pride, as the Lord added, ' She shall crush thy 
head.' . . . The Blessed Virgin, by conquering the devil, brought 
us life and light" (P. 156.) 

" ' Very glorious, O Mary, and wonderful/ exclaims St. Bonavea- 
ture, 'is thy great name. Those who are mindful to utter it at the 
hour of death have nothing to fear from hell, for the devils at once 
abandon the soul when they hear the name of Mary.' " (P. 163.) 

Greater blasphemy still ! Liguori affirms that God 
the Father is under obligation to Mary, and cheerfully 
obeys her commands : — 

" St. Bernardine, of Sienna, does not hesitate to say that all obey 
the commands of Mary, even God himself." (P. 202.) 

" Kejoice, O Mary, that a son has fallen to thy lot as thy debtor, 
who gives to all and receives from none." (P. 210.) 

" She knows so well how to appease Divine justice with her 
tender and wise entreaties, that God himself blesses her for it, and, 
as it were, thanks her, that thus she restrains him from abandoning 
and punishing them as they deserve." (P. 220.) 

" Rejoice, O mother and handmaid of God ! rejoice ! rejoice ! thou 
hast for a debtor him to whom all creatures owe their being. We 
are all debtors to God, but God is debtor to thee." (P. 327.) 

We have scarcely heart to quote from the petitions 
offered to the Virgin. In " The Glories of Mary," one 
prayer, intended as the beautiful blossom or perfected 



IDOLATRY. 185 

fruit of the finished argument, very appropriately closes 
each section. Besides these, there is an interesting 
collection from Koine's most honored saints — in all 
over three score.' In their books of devotion, — the 
number and names of which are exceedingly perplex- 
ing to a poor heretic, — no prayers are more frequent, 
none more ardent than those offered to the Blessed 
Virgin, Mother of God : — 

" O Mother of my God, and my Lady Mary, as a poor wounded 
and loathsome wretch presents himself to a great queen, I present 
myself to thee, who art the Queen of heaven and earth. From the 
lofty throne on which thou are seated, do not disdain, I pray thee, 
to cast thine eyes upon me, a poor sinner," etc. (" Glories of Mary," 
p. 37.) 

" I venerate, O most pure Virgin Mary, thy most sacred heart. 
I, an unhappy sinner, come to thee with a heart filled with all 
uncleanness and wounds. O mother of mercy, do not, on this 
account, despise me, but let it excite thee to a greater compassion, 
and come to my help." (P. 140.) 

" O Mother of God ! O Queen of angels ! O hope of men, 
listen to him who invokes thee, and has recourse to thee. Behold 
me to-day prostrate at thy feet ; I, a miserable slave of hell, conse- 
crate myself to thee as thy servant forever, offering myself to serve 
and honor thee to the utmost of my power all the days of my life." 
(P. 153.) 

" Lady, I know that thou dost glory in being merciful as 
thou art great. I know that thou dost rejoice in being so rich, 
that thou mayest share thy riches with us sinners. I know that 
the more wretched are those who seek thee, the greater is thy desire 
to help and save them." (P. 252.) 

" O Mary ! O my most dear mother, in what an abyss of evil 
I should find myself, if thou, with thy kind hand, hadst not so 



186 IDOLATRY. 

often preserved me ! Yes, how many years should I already have 
been in hell, if thou, with thy powerful prayers, hadst not rescued 
me ! My grievous sins were hurrying me there ; divine justice 
had already condemned me; the raging demons were waiting to 
execute the sentence, but thou didst appear, O mother, not in- ■ 
voked nor asked by me, and hast saved me." (P. 266.) 

" Hearken, O most holy Virgin, to our prayers, and remember 
us. Dispense to us the gifts of thy riches, and the abundant graces 
with which thou art filled. All nations call thee blessed; the 
whole hierarchy of heaven blesses thee, and we, who are of the terres- 
trial hierarchy, also say to thee: Hail, full of grace." (P. 329.) 

" Holy Virgin, Mother of God, succor those who implore thy 
assistance. ... To thee nothing is impossible, for thou canst raise 
even the despairing to the hope of salvation. . . . Thou dost love 
us with a love that no other love can surpass. . . . All the treas- 
ures of the mercy of God are in thy hands." (P. 331.) 

For want of space we pause. Scores of other pas- 
sages, equally or even more revolting, lie open before us. 
If any one desires to see Eomanism as it is, let him 
purchase a " Catholic Manual," and " The Glories of 
Mary." Thenceforth, semi-political papers, like The 
Freeman's Journal and Catholic Register, and Jesuit- 
ical pamphlets, like the Catholic World, will charm in 
vain, charm they never so sweetly. 

Did space permit, quotations innumerable, as blas- 
phemous as those already adduced, could be given from 
" The Manual," " The Key of Paradise," " True Piety," 
" The Christian's Vade Mecum," and the several other 
Catholic collections of prayers. One, from Dr. John 
Power's " Catholic Manual," must suffice : — " Confiding 
in thy goodness and mercy, I cast myself at thy 



IDOLATRY. 187 

sacred feet, and do most humbly supplicate thee, 
Mother of the Eternal Word, to adopt me as thy 
child." 

Bonaventure, a Koman saint (worshipped annually, 
July 14 : see Catholic Almanac), has actually gone 
over most of the Psalms of David, striking out the 
words Lord, God, etc., and inserting, Blessed Virgin, 
Our Lady, Holy Mother, etc. Psalm ex. : — " The Lord 
said unto Our Lady, sit thou on my right hand." 
Psalm xxv. : — " Unto thee, Blessed Virgin, do I lift up 
my soul." Psalm xxxi. : — " In thee, Lady, do I put 
my trust." 

Pope Pius IX., who considers the dogma of the 
Immaculate Conception the glory of his reign, in his 
Encyclical of November 1, 1870, condemning the usurp- 
ers of the States of the Church, addresses to all devout 
Catholics this earnest exhortation : " Going altogether 
to the foot of the throne of grace and mercy, let us 
engage the intercession of the Immaculate Virgin Mary, 
mother of God." 

If we may not apply the word idolatry to these 
abominations of Popery, then, certainly, we have no 
need of the word. The future Noah Webster may as 
well omit it from his dictionary. Comment, however, 
is certainly uncalled for. "And a mighty angel took 
up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the 
sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great city 
Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more 
at all." " Idolaters shall have their part in the lake 



188 IDOLATRY. 

which burnetii with fire and brimstone, which is the 
second death."* 

* " These wise logicians (heretics) of the world 
Can prove with reasoning clear 
How he, in heaven, will welcome those 
Who scorn his Mother here ! . . . 
And this is reason ! this is light ! — 

A light that blinds the eyes, 
And leads to the fire of endless night, 

And the worm that never dies.' , » 

The Catholic World, Jan. No., 1871,. p. 532. 




CHAPTER VII. 

WILL-WORSHIP. 

ILL- WORSHIP, self-imposed restriction, produc- 
ing excessive spiritual pride, but leaving the 
heart impure and the life unchanged, is evi- 
dently a noteworthy characteristic of Popery. 
In Paul's portraiture of the fatal apostasy these words 
occur : " Commanding to abstain from meats." This 
passage, restricted in its application to an organization 
once truly Christian, must of necessity refer to the 
Romish Church; no other has made abstinence from 
animal food a religious duty. Popery, however, has 
enacted, that "meats eaten during Lent, or on Fri- 
day, pollute the body and bring down eternal damna- 
tion on the soul." And must we, then, believe, on the 
authority of a Church which evinces its much-vaunted 
infallibility by abrogating its own immutable laws, that 
something from without, beef-steak, defiles the man ? * 
The proud occupant of Peter's chair, by a single word, 
may reverse the teachings of the humble Nazarene ! 

* Formerly it was enacted : "No meat shall be eaten during Lent, 
on Fridays, or on Saturdays." One of the Popes, however, by a new 
unalterable law suspending all previous immutable enactments, 
granted universal and perpetual indulgence on Saturdays. A Pope's 
word makes the eating of animal food healthful or a damning sin ! 

189 



190 WILL-WORSHIP. 

Must the conscientious Protestant, his life an epistle 
of love, eternally bear the frown of an incensed God 
because, alike on all the days of the week, he temper- 
ately enjoyed the gifts of God's bounty? Shall the 
Catholic, his heart unrenewed, his life a slander on the 
religion of the spotless Jesus, find, in the hour of death 
and the day of judgment, heavens favor richly be- 
stowed simply because, by an act of will, he refused 
animal food on one day in seven ? 

Even mortal sins, it seems, can be committed with 
impunity if the Pope grants permission. The bull of 
Clement XI., in favor of those who should assist Philip 
Y. in the holy war against the heretics, "grants to all 
who should take this bull, that during the year .... 
they may eat flesh in Lent and several other days in 

which it is prohibited that they may eat eggs 

and things with milk." His Infallibility makes known 
when and for what services his subjects may eat eggs 
without incurring eternal damnation. Important busi- 
ness ! In the world's midnight, Popery's palmiest days, 
even heretics could purchase indulgence to commit the 
heinous sin of dining on roast chicken.* 

Paul, discerning the natural tendency of the human 
heart to place reliance in self-imposed outward require- 
ments, and disregard inward piety, affirmed : " Bodily 
exercise profiteth little, but godliness is profitable unto 
all things." The entire system of penance is here con- 
demned. Popery, however, losing sight of the very 

* Price $2.75. 



WILL- WORSHIP. 191 

kernel of the Gospel, that the blood of Christ cleanses 
from all sin, has ever taught that self-chosen torture, 
will-worship, is an efficient aid to piety — is in fact itself 
pietj^. Merit wrought by self-effort is by Eome con- 
sidered as acceptable to God as it is pleasing to the 
carnal heart. Suffering sent of heaven may indeed if 
rightly received strengthen and deepen devotion, but 
self-imposed penances, engendering spiritual pride, pro- 
duce a type of piety — if indeed it be piety — far more 
resembling heathen fanaticism than the self-denial of 
him who, in obedience to the will of the Father, offered 
himself to death that man might live. Between the 
sufferings of Christ and those of an anchorite, who does 
not see a world-wide difference? In what respect a 
senseless, useless, hermit life, like that of the sainted 
Simeon,* is a copy of our Lord's, most certainly infalli- 
bility alone can perceive. Are we, then, to believe 
that useless reverie and Pagan asceticism, with all their 
disgusting filth, ignorance, beggary, and superstition, 
are services more acceptable to God than feeding the 
hungry, clothing the naked, instructing the ignorant, 
reforming the vicious, and living, in the sphere in which 
God has placed us, a life of active obedience to the pre- 
cepts of his Word ? 

Another predicted characteristic of the fatal apostasy 

* This monk, who lived for thirty-six years on a solitary pillar in 
the mountains of Syria, exposed to summer's heat and winter's cold, 
refusing to speak even with his mother, has ever been considered, by 
the Papal Church, a paragon of piety. 



192 WILL-WORSHIP. 

was this : " Forbidding to marry." Among those bear- 
ing the Christian name, none, except the Papists, have 
ever denied to a certain class the inalienable right of 
matrimony. They alone have pronounced that unholy 
which God's Word declares "honorable in all." "A 
bishop," says Paul, "must be blameless, the husband 
of one wife." This — even supposing it does not recom- 
mend marriage to the clergy — certainly at least accords 
them the privilege. Since the days of Gregory VII. , 
however, whose profligate life would have disgraced 
even Pagan Eome, the marriage of a priest has been 
looked upon as a sin incomparably greater than adul- 
tery, or fornication, or even incest. A priest may asso- 
ciate with prostitutes and escape Church censure, but 
to marry a virtuous woman is, in the casuistry of Rome, 
one of the greatest of sins.* 

This enforced celibacy, there can be no doubt, has 
been exceedingly disastrous to the cause of morality. 
With no desire of dwelling upon facts the bare recital 
of which produce shuddering disgust, we refer our read- 
ers to the confession of a priest in Gavin's " Master-Key 



* TJie Catholic World, July, 1870, p. 440, says : "It is against these 
(licentiousness and low views of marriage) that the Church opposes 
her laws of marriage, and the absolute supernatural chastity of her 
priests and religious." Thereby she "provides herself with angels 
and ministers of grace to do her will, accomplish her work, perform 
her innumerable acts of spiritual and corporeal mercy, and be literally 
the god-fathers and god-mothers to the orphaned human race, while 
they obtain for themselves and others countless riches of merit." 
Chastity supernatural ! Riches of merit countless I 



WILL-WORSHIP. 193 

to Popery," p. 35 ; to those of a nun, p. 43 ; and to the 
"Confessions of a Catholic Priest/' translated by Samuel 
F. B. Morse. From revelations frequently made, as in 
the " Memoirs of Sipio De Ricci," and of " Lorette," it 
would seem that in some instances at least monasteries 
and nunneries are dens of infamy in comparison with 
which the temples of ancient Babylon were pure.* 
Even the halls of the Holy Inquisition were not unfre- 
quently converted into harems. (" Master-Key to Po- 
pery," pp. 169-188.) In South America and Spain 
priests are among the most regular frequenters of the 
"house of her whose feet take hold on hell." Lest, 
however, we may be charged with slander, we close by 
quoting the language of St. Liguori, certainly good au- 
thority with Papists : "Among the priests who live in 
the world, it is rare, vert rare, to find any that are 

GOOD." 

As human nature is much the same everywhere, is 
it not fair to charge this wickedness — the extent of 
which is scarcely conceivable by those who have given 
the subject no examination f — upon the scarlet-colored 

* A few months since a motion was made, and carried by a small 
majority in the British Parliament, to appoint a committee to "In- 
quire into Conventual and Monastic Institutions." It was found 
there were 69 monasteries and 233 nunneries in which Eorae 
claimed the prerogative to detain men and women against their will, 
and even transport them to convents upon the continent. Rome is 
above law. 

t A few extracts — the least objectionable— from the confessions of a 
priest ("Master-Key to Popery") we append: "I have served my 
parish sixteen years. I have in money 15,000 pistoles, and I have 
13 



194 WILL-WORSHIP. 

Beast whose forehead bears this inscription, " Mystery, 
Babylon the great, the Mother of harlots and Abomina- 
tions of the earth?" 

given away more than 6000. My money is unlawfully gotten. My 
thoughts have been impure ever since I began to hear confessions. 
My actions have been the most criminal of mankind. I have been 
the cause of many innocent deaths. I have procured, by remedies, 
sixty abortions. We, six priests, did consult and contrive all the 
ways to satisfy our passions. Everybody had a list of the handsomest 
women in the parish. I have sixty nepotes alive. But my principal 
care ought to be of those I had by the two young women I keep at 
home. Both are sisters, and I had, b}? - the oldest, two boys ; and by 
the youngest one, and one which Iliad by my own sister is dead." 




CHAPTER VIII. 

CREDULITY. 
(2 Thess. ii. 11 ; and 1 Tim. iv. 2.) 

N examining the leading characteristics of Popery 
one instinctively asks, how can rational men even 
pretend to believe such monstrous absurdities, 
such palpable errors? Paul gives apparently 
the only possible explanation. Referring to the adhe- 
rents of the "man of sin," "the great apostasy," he 
affirms : — " God shall send them strong delusion, that 
they should believe a lie." Surely, in perfect fairness 
we may ask r has there ever been, or is there now, 
among those who have fallen from the faith, a more 
conspicuous fulfilment of this prophecy than is fur- 
nished by the victims of Popish superstition ? 

If, as the best authority affirms, it was because 
" God gave them over to a reprobate mind," that the 
heathen became guilty of such revolting immoralities 
and " worshipped and served the creature more than 
the Creator," how else shall we account for the deeper 
degradation and the grosser idolatry of Papists ? Pa- 
ganism never sanctioned such enormities as have found 
strenuous advocates in the bosom of " Holy Mother." 
True, in some ages they deified every vile passion that 

195 



196 CREDULITY. 

rankles in the heart of man. Those gods, however, 
were never placed on loftier thrones than Jupiter. 
Yenus and Bacchus were not allowed to purchase 
Jove's pardon of unbridled indulgence. Over all other 
gods there was ever one whose anger could be ap- 
peased, and w T hose favor could be secured only by 
earnest effort after a life of virtue. It was left for 
"the trader in human souls" to promulgate the doc- 
trine that by gold and silver given to the priest for- 
giveness of all sins, even the most heinous, could be 
purchased from the High and Holy one who inhabits 
eternity, the King of kings and Lord of lords. He who 
in his Word so repeatedly proffers a free salvation, is 
thus represented as conferring upon an arrogant and 
corrupt priesthood the right of selling pardons to the 
highest bidders; nay, worse, of granting indulgences, 
permission to sin to the wealthiest knaves, and the 
most unprincipled miscreants. The heathen worshipped 
gods which their own hands had made, it is true. 
They never so far degraded themselves, however, as to 
bow in adoration before a morsel of consecrated flour. 
Such disgusting idolatry is found only among the ad- 
vocates of transubstantiation. 

Except that God had given them up to believe a lie, 
how could Papists found a hope of heaven on the abso- 
lution granted by a priest ? Turning from the throne 
of free grace, they hasten to a confessor for pardon. 
A frail, sinning man, forgives sins committed against 
God ! A criminal pardons his fellow-criminal ! A 



CREDULITY. 197 

creature forgives the violation of the Creator s laws ! 
Eome's most honored Council has pronounced an ana- 
thema against all who deny that the act of the priest 
in granting absolution is properly a judicial act. "He 
sits on the judgment, seat representing Christ, and 
doing what Christ does." . In the catechism sanctioned 
by the Council of Trent, it is said : — " In the minister 
of God, who sits in the tribunal of penance, as his 
legitimate judge, the penitent venerates the power 
and person of our Lord Jesus Christ; for, in the ad- 
ministration of this, as in that of the other sacraments, 
the priest represents the character and discharges the 
functions of Jesus Christ." When a large number of 
the ignorant are so credulous as to believe that this 
claim is founded in truth, is it any wonder that we wit- 
ness from even the most atrocious murderers such dis- 
gusting exhibitions of hopes belonging alone to the 
devoutly penitent? And certainly it need scarcely 
strike us with surprise, if in almost every community 
not a few were found who, goaded by conscience to 
seek remission of sin, bow at the feet of the priest 
confidently expecting to purchase forgiveness with a 
part of the wages of iniquity. This done, why should 
they not return with even intensified delight to their 
former mode of life ? An earnest, long-continued en- 
deavor to imitate the pure life of Christ could not be 
expected from those who are taught to believe that the 
favor of God can be purchased with dollars and cents. 
Even if left to the promptings of nature, untutored by 



198 CREDULITY. 

an infallible church, man would be far more likely to 
become enamored of virtue. Consciously burdened with 
a sense of guilt, he might be driven to him who alone 
" has power on earth to forgive sin." 

That Paul's prophecy finds a fulfilment in the history 
of Romanism is apparent in the doctrine of the real 
presence. In this the faithful, on pain of eternal dam- 
nation, are expected to believe that bread and wine, by 
the enunciation of the magic words, "Hoc est corpus 
rneum" are changed into Christ's " body, blood, soul, and 
divinity." It is flesh, though it tastes like bread. It 
is blood, though it tastes like wine. Did ever delusion 
equal this ? Men claiming common sense deliberately 
profess disbelief in the testimony of their own senses. 
On the mere declaration of a priest, they contemn one 
of God's immutable laws, that to which they are in- 
debted for all the knowledge they have of an external 
world. In being faithful to Rome, they become the 
worst of infidels, without faith in themselves and with- 
out faith in the God that made them. 

Instead of denominating this a delusion, perhaps, so 
far as intelligent Papists are concerned, it were more 
charitable to characterize it as a "lie spoken in hypo- 
crisy." Evidently it is "a commandment of men," 
defended as an essential part of a perfected system of 
extortion. Without it there would be a manifest ab- 
surdity in claiming ability to forgive sins. Represented, 
however, as a " bloodless sacrifice," offered by the priest 
to the Father of all mercies, the appearance of oonsis- 



CREDULITY. 199 

tency is retained. Merit purchasable is also market- 
able. Transubstantiation, like the doctrine of superero- 
gation, is food for the hen that lays the golden egg. 

And what shall we denominate the doctrine of pur- 
gatory, — a profitable delusion, or a lie spoken in hypo- 
crisy ? What could be better calculated to make market 
for masses? "Saints," says the Council of Florence, 
" go to heaven ; sinners to hell ; and the middling class 
to purgatory." Among the middlings, the priests now 
cunningly manage, for an obvious reason, to include 
nearly all. Saints in heaven, and sinners in hell, are 
beyond the reach of further extortion. From the fires 
of purgatory, however, unbloody sacrifices, if well paid 
for, can secure release. Whilst belief in this interme- 
diate state is either a delusion borrowed from Paganism, 
or a hypocritical falsehood intended to fill Eome's cof- 
fers, the pretence that the offering of a consecrated 
wafer can open to the soul the gates of paradise, is a 
delusion or hypocrisy still more inexplicable ; and most 
unaccountable of all is the claim that the Church can 
determine when the soul is released from the purifying 
flames. To those whom God has given up to believe a 
lie, is any delusion too great for credence ? — any profit- 
able falsehood too hypocritical for advocacy ? 

This monstrous doctrine of purgatory the deluded 
victims of Popish superstition believe, notwithstanding 
it is written, " The blood of Christ cleanseth from all 
sin;" notwithstanding the Saviour's promise to the 
thief on the cross, " This day shalt thou be with me in 



200 CREDULITY. 

paradise ;" notwithstanding the parable of the rich man 
and Lazarus, in which the former is represented as lift- 
ing up his eyes in hell, being in torments, the latter as 
safely folded in Abraham's bosom. They credit this 
absurdity whilst professing to accept as of inspired au- 
thority the declarations of Paul, " I have a desire to 
depart and to be with Christ, which is far better ; " 
" For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain ; " " To be 
absent from the body is to be present with the Lord." 
Blinded of God, the intelligent strenuously advocate, 
and the ignorant superstitiously believe, a doctrine 
which effectually "makes merchandise of the souls of 
men." 

And her doctrine of supererogation is a delusion no 
less absurd. It is gravely said, "Men can do more than 
God's holy law demands." Many have done so. These 
works have merit. This merit, collected from the deeds 
of thousands of worthies, has been gathered into a 
treasury of which the Pope has the key. Hence he can 
deal out these good works in the form of indulgences 
and absolutions. What a mine of wealth ! And every 
man, however wicked, may thence derive- merit that 
w T ill atone for any sin he may commit, even theft, adul- 
tery, or murder, on the simple condition that the price 
of the requisite amount of treasured goodness is paid 
for in current coin. Is this a delusion? — or is it ras- 
cality ? With the ignorant masses it is no doubt the 
former. But the educated — do they really believe that 
the Pope collects the merits of those who are more vir- 



CREDULITY. 201 

tuous than God requires into a fund for insuring souls 
against the torments of perdition, and sells life policies 
\to the highest bidder ? If so, alas for frail humanity ! 
Superstition, it would seem, can silence common sense ! 
That the Popes are legitimate successors of St. Peter, 
biskops over all Christendom, is another of Home's de- 
lusions. Though unable to determine whether the 
rock upon which Christ founded his Church was Peter, 
the Apostles, Peter's faith, Peter's confession, or the 
Saviours own meritorious offering, infallibility yet con- 
fidently affirms that upon the Pope in Rome is founded 
the true, holy, Catholic, Apostolic Church, out of which 
none can even hope for salvation. Supposing the Apos- 
tolic office still continues — a purely gratuitous assump- 
tion, since none can show the requisite qualifications, 
personal knowledge of our Saviour's resurrection, a call 
direct from his lips, infallibility in teaching truth, the 
gift of tongues, the power of working miracles, and a 
commission to teach truth to the entire human family 
in all countries and all ages — the claim of an unbroken 
succession from Peter has never been established. No 
Papist, even with the aid of inerrancy, has been able 
to trace the line. On the concession of Rome's most 
honored historians, Bellarmine, Alexander, Du Pin and 
others, at least 240 years remain from the beginning 
of the Christian era in which no vestiges of Papal au- 
thority can be discovered. The most ancient of the 
fathers, Irenaeus, Justin, and Clemens of Alexandria, 
make no mention of it, direct or indirect. And it is 



202 CREDULITY. 

undeniably true that in the tenth century abandoned 
women ruled in Rome, by whom false pontiffs, their 
paramours, were intruded into the Papal chair. Will 
any Romanist have the hardihood to affirm that grossly 
immoral men, thus illegally thrust into office, were suc- 
cessors of the holy Apostles ? Moreover, there have 
been times in the history of the Church when the line 
of succession cannot be traced even through such 
monsters of iniquity, no one even claiming universal 
spiritual sovereignty. For fifty years there ware two 
infallible pontiffs, one at Avignon, another ac Rome, 
each claiming to be the only legitimate successor of St. 
Peter. Both of these were deposed by the Council of 
Pisa, and Alexander elected. This resulted in giving 
Holy Mother three infallible heads. These being de- 
posed by the Council of Constance, each took solemn 
oath to yield obedience. *Each immediately resumed 
the claim : thus there were three, all perjured. In the 
face of such facts, admitted by all candid historians, 
Papal as well as Protestant, it evidently requires no 
small amount of credulity to believe not merely that 
the Popes are true successors of St. Peter, but that the 
Church founded on them is the only Church of Christ 
on earth. 

The Church of Rome assumes to be in possession of 
the keys of heaven, although it has forsaken the funda- 
mental doctrines of the Gospel. It denies that regene- 
ration of heart and purity of purpose are necessary to 
salvation. Christ's meritorious offering, the only suffi- 



CREDULITY. 203 

cient atonement, is practically rejected. That justifi- 
cation is solely by faith in the Lord's righteousness, and 
that sanctification is the work of God's spirit, are re- 
peatedly and emphatically denied. It condemns the 
declaration of Paul, that " there is no righteousness in 
us," claiming merit from nature and justifying righte- 
ousness from the deeds of the law. Contradicting the 
teaching of the Apostle, it affirms, "Man can be just 
before God, yea, holier than his law requires." The as- 
sertion of Scripture, " By the deeds of the law there 
shall no flesh be justified," is met with the declaration, 
" We are set free from sin on account of our works." 
That " God desires or wills that all men should repent," 
and that "repentance is the gift of God," are condemned 
in severe terms. These propositions : " Believers are 
about to enter into their rest," " The Bible is the only 
infallible rule of faith and practice," are pronounced 
"damnable heresies." And although the New Testa- 
ment has given this, " forbidding to marry/ as one of 
the marks of the man of sin, yet they prohibit marriage 
in the clergy while permitting concubinage. Could de- 
lusion surpass this, that men should believe themselves 
the true Church of Christ whilst they have apostatized 
from almost every essential doctrine of the Gospel ? 

Unless we accept one or other of Paul's explanations 
— either believing them strongly deluded or hypocriti- 
cally false — how shall we account for their use of in- 
cense ; their solemn consecration of bells and burial 
places ; their burning of wax candles ; and their sprink- 



204 CREDULITY. 

ling of horses, asses, and cattle ? Formerly pious soli- 
citude was taken in the proper solution, by an infallible 
Church, of the vitally important question, " Shall the 
hair of the monks be shaved in the form of a semicircle 
or circle?" Do not such things evidence the presence 
of seducing spirits cunningly turning the thoughts from 
the state of the heart to unmeaning forms? 

And by what terms shall we characterize those end- 
less frauds by which superstitious people were made to 
believe pretended miracles ; or those silly dreams by 
which the most unprincipled impostors that ever dis- 
graced humanity pretended to be directed to the tombs 
of saints and martyrs ? And the bones thus obtained, 
how powerful! "By them," so says an infallible 
Church, " Satan's cunningest machinations were suc- 
cessfully defeated : diseases both of body and mind, 
otherwise incurable, were instantaneously healed." In 
one thing at least they were exceedingly potent. They 
filled Rome's empty treasury. That, in the Romish 
code of morals, is all that need be demanded. " It is 
an act of virtue to deceive, and lie, when, by that means, 
the interests of the Church can be promoted." False- 
hood, sometimes adroitly conceived, always persistently 
adhered to, has ever been one of Rome's most efficient 
agencies in establishing and perpetuating her power * 

* As specimens of the agencies employed by Rome to keep her chil- 
dren from straying from the fold, take these drafts upon the credulity 
of the ignorant : " The Holy Scriptures are far more extensively read 
among Catholics than they are by Protestants."— Plain Talk about 



CREDULITY. 205 

" God," says Paul, " shall send them strong delusion, 
that they should believe a lie." " The spirit speaketh 
expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart 
from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doc- 
trines of devils; speaking lies in hypocrisy, having 

the Protestantism of To-Day, p. 121. "Tradition has in itself as 
much authority as the Gospel." — Idem, p. 127. "Heresy is in itself 
a more grievous sin, an evil far greater and more baneful, than im- 
morality and the inordinations of sensuality." — Idem, p. 27. "Chris- 
tianity and Catholicity are one and the same thing." — Idem, p. 56. 
"To be a Christian is to be a Catholic : outside of Catholicity you 
may be a Lutheran, a Calvinist, a Mahommedan, a Mormon, a Eree 
Thinker, a Buddhist, but you are not, you cannot be a Christian."— 
p, 58. " 'Tis not very hard to be a good Protestant. Believe what- 
ever you please in matters of religion. Believe nothing at all, if it 
suits you better. Be honest, as the world understands it. Bead the 
Bible or not, as it pleases you ; go to church, or do not go ; forget not 
to subscribe to one, or two, or three Bible and evangelical societies ; 
but, above all, hold the Catholic Church in abomination — and you 
shall be a good Protestant." — p. 20. "One is poor, and wishes to 
emerge from his poverty ; another is swayed by passions, which he 
does not wish to control ; a third has too much pride, and is loath to 
subdue it ; a fourth is ignorant, and allows himself to be led away. 
For such reasons people become Protestant." — p. 37. "As for him 

who becomes a Protestant Poor apostate! for him, no 

more the beautiful ceremonies of the Church. The images of our 
Lord, of the Blessed Virgin, and of the saints, become emblems of 
idolatry !— no more crucifix, no more the sign of the cross : it is idol- 
atry I — no more prayers : no more respect or love for the Mother of 
God : idolatry !— no more trusting the intercession of saints, patrons 
in heaven, advocates, protectors near God : idolatry ! " 

"And when the hour of death is drawing near— when the unfortu- 
nate man is left to himself, about standing before God, covered with 
the sins of his whole life— no priest to administer the last sacraments 
of the Church, no priest to tell him, with all the power of divine au- 



206 CREDULITY. 

their conscience seared with a hot iron ; forbidding to 
marry," etc. — 1 Tim. iv. 1-3. 

Among the delusions of Romanism, none, perhaps, is 
more transparently absurd than their much-vaunted 
immutability. Bossuet, the celebrated Bishop of Meaux, 
detailed, with seemingly intense delight, the alleged 
variations of Protestantism, assuming, indeed asserting, 
that "Catholicity ever has been, is, and ever will be, as 
unchangeable as its Author." In face of all the facts, 
for a Protestant to listen to this claim without a smile, 

thority, ' Poor sinner, take courage ; thou canst die in peace, because 
Jesus has given me the power to forgive thee thy sins. 1 " — Idem, p. 233. 

" The death-bed of the founders of Protestantism— all apostates, and, 
for the most, apostate priests — bears us out in our assertions, and 
with terribly overwhelming evidence." 

" Luther despaired of the salvation of his soul. Shortly before his 
death, his concubine pointed to the brilliancy of the stars in the fir- 
mament. 

" ' See, Martin, how beautiful that heaven is ! ' 

" l It does not shine in our behalf,' replied the master, moodily. 

"'Is it because we have broken our vows?' resumed Kate, in 
dismay. 

" ' May be,' said Luther. 

" ' If so, let us go back.' 

" 4 Too late ! the hearse is stuck in the mire.' And he would hear 
no more. 

"At Eisleben, on the day previous to that on which he was stricken 
with apoplexy, he remarked to his friends : ' I have almost lost sight 
of the Christ, tossed as I am by these waves of despair which over- 
whelm me.' And after a while, 'I, who have imparted salvation to 
so many, cannot save myself.' 

" He died forlorn of God — blaspheming to the very end. His last 
words were an attestation of his impenitence. His eldest son, who 
had doubts about the Reformation and the Reform, asked him for a 



CREDULITY. 207 

certainly requires no ordinary measure of gravity. And 
for Papists to yield it cordial belief, imperatively de- 
mands either extreme ignorance, obstinate credulity, or 
gross bigotry. No doubt the Church which once con- 
demned the revolution of the earth upon its axis, must 
now be, as it ever has been, immutable. Unchangeable 
as Deity, and lasting as time, Popery's great argument 
is a pathetic appeal to antiquity. By this the doubting 
faithful are confirmed, and heretics silenced. It is an 
end of all controversy. This question, "Where was 

last time whether he persevered in the doctrine he preached. 'Yes,' 
replied a gurgling sound from the old sinner's throat— and Luther 
was hefore his God. The last descendant of Luther died not long ago 
a fervent Catholic." 

" Schusselburg, a Protestant, writes : 'Calvin died of scarlet fever, 
devoured of vermin, and eaten up by ulcerous abscess, the stench 
whereof drove away every person. ' In great misery he gave up his 
rascally ghost, despairing of salvation, evoking the devils from the 
abyss, and uttering oaths most horrible and blasphemies most 
frightful. 

"Spalatin, Justus, Jonas, Isinder, and a host of other friends of 
Luther, died either in despair or crazy. Henry VIII. died bewailing 
that he had lost heaven ; and his worthy daughter Elizabeth breathed 
her last in deep desolation, stretched on the floor — not daring to lie 
in bed, because, at the first attack of her illness, she thought she saw 
her body all torn to pieces and palpitating in a cauldron of fire. 

"Let, then, in the presence of such frightful deaths and of the 
thought of eternity, those of our unfortunate brethren who may be 
tempted to abandon their Church, remember that a day will come 
when they will also be summoned to appear before God ! Let them 
think, in their sober senses, of death, and of judgment, and of hell, 
and I pledge my word they will not think of becoming Protestants." — 
Plain Talk about the Protestantism of To-Day, p. 236. Boston : Pat- 
rick Donahoe, 1870. Imprimatur, Joannes Josephus, Episcopus Boston. 



208 CREDULITY. 

your Protestant Church before the Reformation?" is 
the rallying cry of the advancing hosts of Papacy, and 
is expected to be the requiem sung over the lifeless 
corpse of soulless, godless Protestantism, " that spawn 
of hell," destined, as infallibility assures us, speedily to 
go to his own place. Where was Protestantism three 
hundred years ago ? Where were the Augean stables 
before they were cleansed by Hercules? — where the 
decaying palace before its crumbling towers, and ivy- 
bound walls, and tottering foundations were repaired, 
strengthened, and beautified? The doctrines of Pro- 
testantism are as old as the promulgation of the Gospel. 
Romanism is the intruder. Its characteristic doctrines 
are mere novelties in the religious world. 

By what terms shall we characterize that blindness 
which, disregarding the foul stains upon her history, 
denominates the Papal Antichrist " Holy Mother," the 
one true, Catholic, Apostolic Church, out of which is 
no salvation ? Pope John XII. was guilty of blasphemy, 
perjury, profanation, impiety, simony, sacrilege, adul- 
tery, incest, and murder. " He was," says Bellarmine, 
" nearly the wickedest of the Popes." * John XXIII., 
however, exceeded him. His Holiness, Infallible Judge 
in faith and morals, was, by the Council of Constance, 
convicted of denying the accountability of man, the 

* When summoned to attend a Council and answer the charges 
brought against him, he refused, and excommunicated the Council in 
the name of God. Though deposed, he regained the Papal throne. 
Caught in adultery, he was killed, probably by the injured husband. 

See Edgar's " Variations of Popery," p. 110. 



CREDULITY. 209 

immortality of the soul, the resurrection of the body, 
and all the institutions of revealed religion. But his 
errors in faith were venial and few compared with his 
immoralities. He was found guilty of almost every 
crime of which it is possible to conceive. The list enu- 
merated no less than seventy; among these, simony, 
piracy, exaction, barbarity, robbery, murder, massacre, 
lying, perjury, fornication, adultery, incest, and sodomy, 
Of Alexander VI., another infallible Pope, a trust- 
worthy historian says : " His debauchery, perfidy, am- 
bition, malice, inhumanity, and irreligion, made him 
the execration of all Europe." He died from drinking 
one of the poisoned cups prepared by him for the rich 
cardinals whose possessions he intended to seize. Hu- 
manity disowns the monster. His successor, Julius II., 
inherited, along with the tiara, all the immoralities of 
the Papacy. Having secured the triple crown by brib- 
ing the cardinals, no crime was too great to appal his 
unterrified conscience. Assassination, adultery, sodomy, 
and bestial drunkenness, are scarcely a moiety of his 
enormities. " He was a scandal to the whole Church. 
He filled Italy with rapine, war, and blood." Pope 
Leo X. denied the immortality of the soul, and in fact 
every doctrine of Christianity, denominating it a " lucra- 
tive fiction." "Paul III., and Julius III., were such 
licentious characters that no modest man can write or 
read their lives without blushing." The former, the 
convener of the Council of Trent, made large sums of 

money by selling Indulgences and licenses to houses of 
14 



210 CREDULITY. 

ill-fame. At least four pontiffs, Liberius, Zosimus, 
Honorius, and Vigilius, were convicted of heresy; sev- 
enteen of perjury, and twenty-five of schism. Accord- 
ing to Genebrard, " For nearly 150 years about fifty 
Popes deserted wholly the virtue of their predecessors, 
being apostate rather than apostolic." Baronius, him- 
self a Papist, as if unable to repress the intensity of his 
disgust for the abominations of the Papal See, exclaims : 
" The case is such, that scarcely any one can believe, or 
even will believe it, unless he sees it with his eyes, and 
handles it with his hands, viz., what unworthy, vile, 
unsightly, yea, execrable and hateful things the sacred 
Apostolic See, on whose hinges the universal Apostolical 

Church turns, has been compelled to see 

To our shame and grief, be it spoken, how many mon- 
sters, horrible to behold, were intruded by them (the 
secular princes) into that seat which is reverenced by 
angels!" "The Holy See is bespattered with filth," 
"infected by stench," "defiled by impurities," and 
" blackened by perpetual infamy ! " Guiciardini, an- 
other defender of Holy Mother, speaking of the Popes 
of the sixteenth century, says : " He was esteemed a 
good Pope, in those days, who did not exceed in wick- 
edness the worst of men." 

Of the Councils which have given us the dogmas of 
Romanism, some have been immortalized not less by 
villainy than by heresy. That of Constantinople is 
described by Nazianzen as "A cabal of wretches fit for 
the house of correction." That of Nice, in approving a 



CREDULITY. 211 

disgusting story, sanctioned perjury and fornication. 
Of the Council of Lyons, Cardinal Hugo, in his farewell 
address to the retiring president, Pope Innocent, pre- 
sents this picture : " Friends, we have effected a work 
of great utility and charity in this city. When we 
came to Lyons, we found three or four brothels in it, 
and we have left at our departure only one. But this 
extends, without interruption, from the eastern to the 
western gate of the city." The Council of Constance, 
composed of 1000 holy fathers, which solemnly decreed 
that " no faith shall be kept with heretics," and con- 
signed John Huss to the flames, although he had given 
himself into their hands only on the express pledge of 
protection given by the Emperor, was attended by 1500 
public prostitutes. This same Council ordered the 
bones of Wyckliffe to be "dug up and thrown upon a 
dung-hill." Well does Baronius exclaim : " What is, 
then, the face of the holy Roman Church ! How ex- 
ceedingly foul it is ! " To believe that an organization, 
characterized, according to the assertions of its own his- 
torians, by such unheard-of abominations, is the only 
true Church, demands a credulity fitly termed, " delu- 
sion sent of God." 

On pain of unending woe, every genuine Romanist 
must now believe that Pius IX. is infallible. Here is 
a specimen of his inerrancy. Arguing for his temporal 
power (since needing stronger support than infallible 
reasoning), His Holiness, jumbling together two pas- 
sages of Scripture entirely separate and distinct, said : 



212 CREDULITY. 

" In the garden of Olives, on the night before Christ's 
crucifixion, the multitude with Judas came to him. 
And they said, 'Art thou a king?' and he answered, * I 
am/ And they went back and fell on the ground." 
Certainly this is no small tax on the credulity of those 
who so loudly proclaim the Pope infallible, especially 
and pre-eminently in interpreting Scripture. This ar- 
gument is only exceeded by that of Pope Boniface IV., 
who employed his infallibility in establishing this pro- 
position : Monks are angels. 

Major Premise : All animals with six wings are 
angels. 

Minor Premise : Monks have six wings, viz., the 
» cowl, two ; the arms, two ; the 

, legs, two. 



Er<xo : Monks are ansels. 



■o 



Quod erat demonstrandum. 



PART III. 

Popery the Foe of Liberty, 




PERSECUTION IN ITALY. 



CHAPTER I 



PERSECUTION. 




YRANTS, the more effectually to secure power, 
have ever professed supreme regard for man's 
highest interests. It was under the plea of ex- 
tending Grecian learning, the proudest gift of 
human genius, that Alexander burned villages, sacked 
cities, and trampled upon rights dear as life itself. 
Under the cloak of unrivalled regard to the unity of 
God, Mohammed established, what had otherwise been 
impossible, a despotism as cruel as the most heartless 
fatalism could devise. 

What others secured by reiterated protestations of 
devotion to one single principle, Rome attained by 
seizing upon the Gospel. The religion of Jesus, the 
fountain of all true liberty, personal and national, civil 
and religious, was so obscured by error as to become, 
in the hands of those claiming sole right to impart re- 
ligious instruction, a most powerful engine of Satanic 
cruelty. When, therefore, all other agencies had failed 
in crushing the spirit of freedom, the Romish Church, 
in the sacred name of religion, a religion proclaiming 

good will to men, solemnly inaugurated a system of 

215 



216 PERSECUTION. 

persecution unparalleled in the annals of the most 
blood-thirsty Paganism. 

Popery, in her noonday of glory, unblushingly denied 
to those rejecting her dogmas even the right of inherit- 
ing property, of collecting moneys j ustly due them, and 
of bequeathing even the savings of poverty to their own 
children.* Is not this a fulfilment, to the very letter, 
of that ancient prediction, " He caused .... that 
no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, 
or the name of the beast, or the number of his name?" f 
For the single offence of rejecting Papal supremacy, the 
true followers of Christ were subjected to every species 
of annoyance which diabolical malignity could invent. 
With the design of tempting, or forcing men, from 
worldly considerations, to yield unquestioned obedience, 
treachery, deception, and cunning were freely resorted 
to, and in some instances with such success as to rivet 
the detested system of Popery upon people who loathed 
the very name. 

When even these agencies, powerful as they were, 

* The Council of Constance anathematized "all who should enter 
into contracts or engage in commerce with heretics.' 1 '' In a decree of 
Pope Alexander III., this sentence occurs : " We therefore subject to 
a curse both themselves and their defenders and harborers, and under 
a curse we prohibit all persons from admitting them into their houses, 
or receiving them upon their lands, or cherishing them, or exercising 
any trade with them." Frederick II., in an edict against " the enemies 
of the faith," orders "their goods to be confiscated, their children to 
be disinherited, and their memory and their children to be held infamous 
forever." 

t Rev. xiii. 17. 



PERSECUTION. 217 

proved ineffectual, others more potent still were speedily 
devised. The Inquisition, or, where the establishment 
of this was impossible, holy wars relentlessly waged 
against heretics, it was hoped, would bring all men 
within the pale of Mother Church. The employment 
of such agencies was clearly foretold. "And it was 
given unto him to make war with the saints and to 
overcome them." "And he had power .... to 
cause that as many as would not worship the image of 
the beast should be killed." "I saw the woman 
drunken with the blood of the saints and with the blood 
of the martyrs of Jesus." * 

That the Papacy makes* persecution an essential of 
religion — although the Rev. James Kent Stone, Rome's 
latest conquest, in his "Invitation Heeded," ridicules 
the assertion — is certainly susceptible of clear proof. 
In its defence arguments are drawn, by their most emi- 
nent theologians, from Scripture, from the opinions of 
emperors, from the laws of the Church, from the testi- 
mony of the fathers (that inexhaustible treasury of un- 
answerable reasoning!), and from experience. That 
death is the proper penalty of presuming to disobey 
His Infallibility, is, we are told, the teaching of reason 
as well as the dictate of piety. Heretics, unless de- 
stroyed, will contaminate the righteous. By tortures 
inflicted on the few, however, the eternal salvation of 
the many may be secured. Nay, even to the deluded 

* Rev. xiii. 7, 15 ; xvii. 6. 



218 PERSECUTION. 

infidels themselves it is a mercy; it sends them to hell 
before they shall increase the torments of perdition.* 

Nor was the defence of a doctrine so essential as the 
right of the Church to persecute, left to the ingenious, 
though possibly fallible reasoning of bishops and cardi- 
nals. Even Popes, infallible vicars, in the exercise of 
sovereign authority, undertook the laudable task of 
hounding on crazed fanatics to murder men, women, 
and even defenceless children, in the name of the meek, 
loving, forgiving Jesus. Urban II. issued a bull de- 
claring : " No one is to be deemed a murderer who, 
burning with zeal for the interests of Mother Church, 
shall kill excommunicated persons." In 1825, Pope 
Leo XII. suspended his plenary indulgence on "the 
extirpation of heretics." Can immutability change? 
Can infallibility err? Has any Pope of the last thousand 
years disapproved of persecution ? Has Pius IX. abro- 
gated one solitary law against heretics ? 

Even Councils, not provincial — the authority of these, 
Papists might possibly call in question — but general 
Councils, and of these not less than five, have enjoined 

* u The blood of heretics," says the Rhemish annotators, "is no 
more the blood of saints than the blood of thieves, man-killers, and 
other malefactors, for the shedding of which, by order of justice, no 
commonwealth shall answer." — Rev. xvii. 6. 

Bellarmine says: "Heretics condemned by the Church may be 
punished by temporal penalties, and even with death." 

Thomas Aquiuas affirms : " Heretics may not only be excommuni- 
cated, but justly killed." 

Bossuet declares : "No illusion can be more dangerous than making 
toleration a mark of the true Church." 



PERSECUTION. 219 

or sanctioned the extermination of heretics, giving their 
voice for death as the proper punishment of what they 
choose to denominate heresy. Surely the Romish 
Church, if the declarations of her priests, bishops, car- 
dinals, Popes, and Councils prove anything, is the de- 
liberate defender of persecution, even to death, for 
opinion s sake. Every priest, therefore, in taking oath 
" to hold and teach all that the sacred canons and gen- 
eral Councils have delivered, declared, and defended," 
swears to believe and t6 teach Rome's right to torture 
and burn heretics, that is, Protestants * 

Even kings " were compelled by Church censures to 
endeavor, in good faith, according to their power, to 
destroy all heretics marked by the Church, out of the 
lands of their jurisdiction." Four Councils, the Third 
Lateran, the Fourth Lateran, Constance, and Trent, 
endorsed this order.f That the woman, Mother of Har- 
lots, sitting upon a scarlet colored beast, and drunken 
with the blood of the martyrs, should be aided in her 
work of death by the civil authority, was plainly fore- 
told: "These ten horns which thou sawest, are ten 
kings These have one mind, and shall 

* In the oath commonly administered to bishops occur these words : 
" Schismatics and rebels to our Lord, the Pope, and his successors, I 
will, to the utmost of my power, persecute and destroy." 

f Frederick II., loyal son of Popish arrogance, issued an edict, as- 
serting the divine right of kings " to wield the material sword .... 
against the enemies of the faith, for the extirpation of heretical 
pravity. " " We shall not suffer, " he adds, " the wretches, who infect 
the world with their doctrines, to live.' , 



220 PERSECUTION. 

give their power and strength unto the beast." — Rev. 
xvii. 3, 13. 

And with terrible energy did Rome vindicate her 
much-vaunted right to persecute. The holy Inquisition, 
Satan's masterpiece, with St. Dominic, a raving fanatic, 
for its first general, Innocent III. for its founder, a 
powerful order of monks for its defenders, and kings 
for the executioners of its fiendish penalties, became an 
engine of unexampled cruelty, sending terror into every 
land, suspicion into every home, and anguish into al- 
most every heart. Neither age, nor sex, position nor 
past services, were guarantees of security. A word 
jestingly spoken, or neglect in bowing to the conse- 
crated wafer (the elevated bran-god), or a look of con- 
tempt cast upon a begging friar, might prove the 
occasion of imprisonment and torture. Personal re- 
sentment, or even suspicion, especially where the parties 
suspected were wealthy, might lead to arrest. Even 
ladies, in many instances, were torn from endeared 
husbands, or doting parents, because lust inflamed their 
fiendish persecutors.* 

Having made certain, through spies,f that the person 
whom they determined to arrest was at home, the offi- 

* When the French, on entering Aragon (1706), threw open the 
doors of the Inquisition, sixty youug women were found, the harem 
of the Inquisitor General. — Gavin's "Master-Key to Popery." 

t In Spain alone, 18,000 were employed, whose business it was, 
with Satanic cunning, to insinuate themselves into every company, 
speak against the Pope and the Church— thus beguiling the unwary — 
and drag the suspected before the holy Inquisition. 



PERSECUTION. 221 

cers of the inquisition, at the dead hour of midnight, 
knocked at the door. To the question, "Who is 
there?" a voice from the darkness responds, "The holy 
Inquisition." Terror opens the door, and the daughter, 
the son, the wife, or the husband, seized by ruffians, is 
carried away to the cells of a dungeon, the remaining 
members of the family not daring to complain, scarcely 
to disclose their grief. Theirs is a sorrow unknown 
except to him whose eye never slumbers, who counts 
the tears of suffering innocence. 

These officers, the better to fit them for their fiend- 
ish business, were earnestly admonished not to allow 
nature to get the better of grace. In some instances 
they were actually ordered to arrest their own near 
relatives, that by conquering human weakness they 
might prove themselves worthy of the favor of Holy 
Mother. Fiendish heartlessness ! Adamantine cruelty ! 

The accused were never confronted with the acccuser. 
They were ordered to confess; refusing, torture was 
applied to extort an acknowledgment of guilt. If to 
save themselves from present anguish, they confess to 
doubts in regard to the real presence, papal supremacy, 
priestly absolution, the worship of images, the invoca- 
tion of saints, the existence of purgatory, or the 
doctrine of infallibility, they sentence themselves to 
martyrdom ; refusing to confess — perhaps because con- 
scious of no crime — they are tortured to the extent of 
human endurance, and then bleeding, lacerated and 
trembling, are thrust into a loathsome dungeon to pine 



222 PERSECUTION. 

in solitude, unrelieved, unpitied, friendless, dying a hun- 
dred deaths in one. Were ever laws devised more evi- 
dently contrary to the plainest dictates of equity ? 

These punishments, inflicted in an underground 
apartment denominated the " Hall of Torture," were of 
every species which fiendish ingenuity could invent. 
Of the unfortunate victims of Papal fury, some were 
suffocated by water poured into the stomach; others, 
with cords fastened around the wrists behind the back, 
and heavy weights suspended from the feet, were drawn 
up to great heights, and then let fall to within a few feet 
of the floor, dislocating every joint; some were slowly 
roasted in closed iron pans ; of some, the feet smeared 
with oil were roasted to a crisp ; of others, the hands 
were crushed in clamps, or the bodies pierced with 
needles. The Auto da fe periodically closed the horrid 
tragedy. On a Sabbath morning, day sacred to him 
whose essential attribute is love, numbers of these 
lacerated beings were led forth — and in the name of 
Christianity ! — to the place of burning. The heart, 
sickening at the recital of such deeds of hellish cruelty, 
and recalling the names of such worthy martyrs as 
Wycliffe, Huss, Ridley, Latimer, Cranmer, and thous- 
ands of others, joins, with a holy fervor of devotion, in 
the prayer of the redeemed souls ceaselessly ascending 
from under the altar of the Almighty: "How long, 
Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our 
blood on them that dwell on the earth?" — Rev. vi. 10. 

Having found, after centuries of trial, that the 



PERSE CUT ION. 2 23 

Inquisition and the Crusades were powerless in crushing 
the pure religion of Jesus, that, in fact, " the blood of 
the martyrs became the seed of the Church," Rome 
endeavored, in the language of Scripture, to wear out 
the saints of the Most High. In place of death she 
substituted every species of annoyance which malignant 
hatred inspired of Satan could invent. Comparatively 
few however were induced to betray the Lord. 
" Herein is the faith and patience of the Saints." 

When the number of those denying the Pope's 
supremacy became, in any country, too great to be 
killed by the Inquisition, holy wars were advocated. 
With the cross, symbol of love, on their banners, the 
Papal legions went forth in cold blood to butcher men, 
women, and children. For the mortal sin of presum- 
ing to employ the faculties God gave them, they must 
be utterly destroyed. In these Crusades the Romish 
Church actually gloried, and does still glory, feeling no 
remorse for the massacre of thousands, no shame for 
the extinction of kingdoms and people. 

Armed with a bull of indulgence, the Papal emis- 
saries went forth to preach the Crusade. Everywhere 
they exclaimed, " Who will rise up against the evil 
doers? Who will stand up against the workers of 
iniquity ? If you have any zeal for the faith, any 
concern for the glory of God, any desire to reap the 
rich benefits of Papal indulgence, receive the sign of 
the cross, join the army of Immanuel, lend your aid in 
purging the nations, and extending the holy Catholic 
religion." 



224 PERSECUTION. 

These crusades were waged not against those guilty 
of great sins, but against those whose only crime was a 
refusal to acknowledge the sovereignty of Rome's arro- 
gant bishop. This was the deep-seated error which 
roused such unequalled fury. Those communities which 
failed to recognize the proud pontiff enthroned in the 
eternal city as Christ's Vicar on earth, must pay the 
penalty. The sword, and fire, and death, must pro- 
claim that the rights of property and the comforts of 
home belong alone to those who permit His Holiness to 
think for them. 

By way of extenuating the guilt of the Crusaders, 
modern Papists, though ardent advocates of Papal im- 
mutability and of the infallibility dogma, remind us 
that civilization had then made but little progress. 
These crusades, say they, are justly chargeable, not to 
Romanism, but to the barbarism of the times. Who 
instigated those wholesale butcheries ? Infallible Popes. 
Who lauded those unparalleled atrocities which for 
centuries disgraced humanity? Infallible Popes. Does 
infallibility need the light of civilization's dim taper ? 
Erring Protestants might, with some show of candor, 
advance such a plea, but for Papists, it is a betrayal of 
doctrines vital to their system. Have they shown any 
sorrow for the past? Have they expressed repentance 
for the slaughter of unoffending Christians? Have 
they abandoned the right to persecute ? Deceive our- 
selves as we may, Popery is the same unblushing mon- 
ster of cruelty, unchanged, and unchangeable. Phari- 



PERSECUTION. 225 

see-like, while promising liberty of conscience, she is 
continuously engaged in honoring, applauding, and even 
canonizing those whose only title to fame consists in 
the horrid cruelties practised towards the innocent fol- 
lowers of Jesus. 

The blood-thirsty vengeance of the Popes against the 
infidels of the Holy Land, what pencil shall do justice 
to that scene of horror ? Crusades, carried on with in- 
fernal fury for more than a century, caused the death 
of 2,000,000. Followers of Christ the Turks were 
not; but did butcheries convert them? Did they and 
their children learn to love that Saviour in whose name 
they were slaughtered ? Can we even hope that in the 
moment of death on the hard-fought battle-field, many, 
even one, turning a tearful eye towards the ensigns of 
the hated foe, sought mercy from him whose cross em- 
blazoned that blood-stained banner? The blood of 
these clings to the skirts of Romanism. 

In the indictment against Popery, another specifica- 
tion is the deliberate massacre of 300,000 Waldenses 
and Albigenses. Against these true successors of the 
Apostolic Church, who, even on the concession of their 
murderers, were abstemious, laborious, devout and holy, 
Pope Innocent III. raised an army of $00,000. These 
blood-hounds of cruelty were let loose with intense de- 
light upon those whose only crime was the belief, pub- 
licly and fearlessly expressed, that Rome was the 
" Babylonish Harlot" of the Apocalypse. Even Count 

Raimond, their Catholic sovereign, because tardy in the 
15 



226 PERSECUTION. 

work of utterly exterminating his loyal subjects, was 
publicly anathematized in all the churches. Trem- 
bling under excommunication, the Count took solemn 
oath to pursue the Albigenses with fire and sword, 
sparing neither age nor sex, until they bowed to Papal 
authority. Rome, however, not content with even 
such abject subserviency, ordered him to strip naked 
and submit to penance. Nine times was he driven 
around the grave of the Monk Castelnau, and beaten 
with rods upon the bare back. 

In the taking of Beziers, the Pope's legate, when 
asked how the soldiers should distinguish the Catholics 
from the heretics, shouted : " Kill all ; the Lord will 
know his own." When the demon had completed his 
work, the city, swept by fire, was the blackened sepul- 
chre of 60,000. 

Bearing the standard of the cross, and singing " Glory 
to God," the army of the Crusaders, under the bloody 
Montfort, entered Menerbe. Pointing to a prepared pile 
of dry wood, the legate roared : " Be converted, or 
mount this pile." The merciful flames soon released 
the faithful from the relentless fury of their persecutors. 

The persecutions in the valleys of Loyse and Frassi- 
niere were cruel beyond description. Christians, after 
receiving the most solemn assurances of protection, 
were thrust into burning barns, suffocated in caves, led 
forth by scores and beheaded. 

And the Waldenses of Calabria were subjected to 
barbarities no less incredible. Their children, forcibly 



PERSECUTION. 227 

taken from them, were placed in monasteries to be 
educated in the detested system of Popery. Large 
numbers of truly devout Christians, encumbered not 
unfrequently with the aged, and even with helpless 
babes, were driven to the mountains, there to meet 
death in every conceivable aspect of horror : some were 
starved, some frozen, some buried alive in the drifting 
snows, some 

" Slain by the bloody Piedmontese that rolled 
Mother with infant down the rocks." 

But why proceed further? To recount Popery's 
cruelties, even a tithe of them, is impossible. Her his- 
tory is echoed in the carnage of the battle-field, in the 
sighs of suffering innocence, in the unmeasured anguish 
of widowhood. Her pathway upon the earth is but too 
plainly visible, marked in blood, the blood of fifty mil- 
lions of earth's noblest. Of this martyred host who 
can conceive the agonies ? Can language convey any 
adequate conception of the sufferings of the Moors in 
Spain, the Jews in the various Catholic countries they 
have inhabited, the Christians in Bohemia, Portugal, 
Britain, and Holland ? * Known alone to God are the 
sufferings of his chosen ones. In his book of remem- 
brance are recorded the tears, the sighs, the sorrows of 
Christ's struggling Church. 

To relate the intrigues, deceptions and atrocities by 

* In the last-mentioned country, the Duke of Alva boasted that in 
the short space of six months he had caused the death of 18,000 
Protestants. 



228 PERSECUTION. 

which Rome succeeded in crushing out Protestantism 
in poor, down-trodden Ireland, we shall make no at- 
tempt. They are part of her history written in blood, 
— only other illustrations of the same intolerance. 

In France, " with infinite joy " — if human joy can 
be infinite — Popery shed the blood of the saints. Pass- 
ing by the butcheries of Orange and Vassey, the heart 
sickens in recounting the incidents of the Bartholomew 
massacre. On that day, recalled by Protestants only 
with shuddering horror, the demon of Popish cruelty 
went forth by royal command, to gorge himself with 
blood. The poor Huguenots, assembled in Paris under 
the pretext of a marriage between the Protestant king 
of Navarre and the sister of Charles IX., were attacked 
by hired assassins at midnight, and, notwithstanding 
the pledges of protection repeatedly and solemnly given 
(the occasion of their presence, and their defenceless 
condition) were slain in such numbers that the streets 
ran blood to the river. The dead bodies, dragged over 
the rough pavements, were thrown into the Seine. 
Even the king himself, from a window in his palace, 
viewed with seemingly intense delight the work of 
death going forward in the court beneath. Above the 
groans of the dying, and the curses of the soldiers, his 
voice could be distinctly heard, shouting, " Slay them, 
slay them." Even those pressing into his immediate 
presence to implore mercy and plead his pledged pro- 
tection, received this as their only answer, death from 
his hand. In one week, according to Davilla, 10,000 



PERSECUTION. 229 

were slain in Paris alone. And the slaughter in the 
capital was the signal for rekindling the fires of perse- 
cution throughout the entire empire. In nearly all the 
provinces the scenes of Paris were re-enacted ; at Lyons, 
at Orleans, at Toulouse, at Meaux, at Bordeaux. In 
these massacres 30,000 perished. 

And upon this sea of blood — heaven forgive them — 
the Pope, the Church, and the king delighted to look. 
Standing over the dead body of Admiral Coligny, whom 
by assurances of friendship he had drawn within his 
grasp, Charles exclaimed : " The smell of a dead enemy 
is agreeable." To the Pope he sent a special messen- 
ger : " Tell him," said Charles, — " tell him, the Seine 
flows on more majestically after receiving the dead 
bodies of the heretics." " The king's heart," exclaimed 
one of Rome's proud cardinals, " must have been filled 
with a sudden inspiration from God when he gave 
orders for the slaughter of the heretics." And then — 
as if the Papacy must needs put on the scarlet robe — 
the Pope and the cardinals, entering one of Rome's 
grandest cathedrals, returned solemn thanks to God, 
the God of mercy ; thanks for the slaughter of Chris- 
tians ! thanks for the cold-blooded murder of thousands 
of unoffending followers of Jesus ! 

The record of these events, like that of the revolu- 
tion in later times, France would now gladly bury in 
oblivion. They are spots on her history, however, 
which ages of tears can never efface. And that Papists 
of the present day ardently desire to reverse the testi- 



230 PERSECUTION. 

mony of history, or obliterate these unpleasant facts, is 
but too plain from the futile efforts repeatedly put 
forth, as in the "Invitation Heeded," the Catholic 
World, the Freemans Journal and Catholic Register, 
to prove that the Pope and the cardinals were grossly 
imposed upon. Deceived by Charles special messenger 
into returning thanks for the murder of heretics, in- 
stead of expressing gratitude to God for the overthrow 
of those rebelling against civil authority ! Certainly 
such a defence is well worthy the system it seeks to 
shield. 




MIRACLE OF THE CUT THROAT. 



Page 163 




CHAPTER II. 

POPERY THE ENEMY OF CIVIL LIBERTY. 

HAT the Romish Church is nothing less than a 
conspiracy against liberty, personal and national, 
civil and religious, we firmly believe. Being the 
twin sister of despotism, she ever has been, and 
is now, most bitterly hostile to freedom of conscience, 
freedom of the press, education of the masses, distribution 
of the Bible, in fact to everything which Republicans 
are accustomed to regard as the basis and the safeguard 
of popular government. Accordingly she is industrious- 
ly engaged, even now, and in this Republic, in undermin- 
ing, insidiously but surely, the beauteous temple of 
liberty, whose foundations were laid in the blood of per- 
secuted Protestants. Her system, in accordance with 
its time-honored principles, is producing hostility to our 
free institutions. 

The Papal Church is the foe of our system of com- 
mon schools. This scheme of popular education, the 
most successful agency ever devised for inculcating 
those moral principles which are indispensable to the 
continuance of self government, is the object of enmity 
as unrelenting as it is universal. Every available agency 
is employed to shake the confidence of our people 

231 



232 POPERY THE ENEMY OF CIVIL LIBERTY. 

in its equity, wisdom and efficiency. First, it was 
said, the public schools are sectarian. The Protes- 
tant Bible is used. That their hostility is not so 
much against our version as against the Bible itself, 
the basis of public morality, the most essential part of 
true education, the palladium of civil liberty, is conclu- 
sively proved by their unwillingness to circulate even 
their own version, the Douay Bible. Popery has 
always maintained that " the Bible is not a book to be 
in the hands of the people." " Who will not say," ex- 
claims a recent advocate of Eomanism, " that the un- 
common beauty and marvellous English of the Protes- 
tant Bible is one of the great strongholds of heresy in 
this country?" " We ask," says Bishop Lynch, of New 
Orleans, " that the public schools be cleansed from this 
peace-destroying monstrosity — Bible reading." The 
Bishop of Bologna, in an advisory letter to Paul III., 
said : " She (the Catholic Church) is persuaded that this 
is the book which, above all others, raises such storms 
and tempests. And that truly, if any one read it, 
.... he will see . . . .that the doctrine which she 
preaches is altogether different and sometimes contrary 
to that contained in the Bible." 

Since the council held in Baltimore in the spring of 
'52, Rome's efforts have been put forth to secure a dis- 
tribution of the school fund. The demand is general, 
open, persistent. In New York, Philadelphia, St. 
Louis, Cincinnati, Chicago, Newark, — in all our large 
towns and cities, — they have erected commodious school 



POPERY THE ENEMY OF CIVIL LIBERTY. 233 

houses, employed nuns and priests as teachers, and 
petitioned for a pro rata share of the school money. The 
Tablet, a Catholic paper of New York, argues, March 
14, 1868, as follows : 

" The reason why the Catholics cannot, with a good conscience, 
send their children to the public schools, is that the public schools 
are really sectarian. The State is practically anti-Catholic, and its 
schools are necessarily controlled and managed by sectarians, who 
are hostile to the Catholic religion and seek its destruction. The 
reason why the sectarians want the children of Catholics brought 
up in the public schools is because they believe that if so brought 
up they will lose their Catholicity, and become sectarians or infi- 
dels. This, and this alone, is the reason why they are unwilling 
that Catholics should have their quota of the public moneys to 

support separate schools It is idle to talk to sectarians, no 

matter of what name or hue, of justice or of the rights of consci- 
ence; and yet we cannot forbear to say that there is a manifest 
injustice in taxing us to support schools to which we cannot in 

conscience send our children What religious liberty is 

there in this ? " 

Again, in March, 1870, it exclaims : 

" No, gentlemen, that will not do, and there is no help but in 
dividing the public schools, or in abandoning the system alto- 
gether." 

The Freeman s Journal once said : 

" What we Roman Catholics must do now, is to get our children 
out of this devouring fire. At any cost and any sacrifice, we must 
deliver the children over whom we have control from these pits of 
destruction, which lie invitingly in their way, under the name of 
public or district schools." * 

* In the year 1868, the Pope, in an allocution containing a violent 
assertion of Papal power, severely denounces the King of Austria for 



234 POPERY THE ENEMY OF CIVIL LIBERTY. 

Not only the press, but public lecturers are employed 
to bring this movement into favor. The most bare- 
faced falsehoods are palmed off upon the credulous 
public. "We are told that our political institutions are 
of Roman Catholic origin ; that Protestantism is crum- 
bling to pieces; that religion, beyond the pale of the 
Catholic Church, is "machinery, formalism, and mum- 
mery ;" that infidels are the originators of our school 
system. Our common schools are denominated "public 
soup-houses, zvhere our children talze their wooden spoons." 
u Every such school" it is asserted, " is an insult to the 
religion and virtue of our people" * " The prototype 
of our school system," said another Roman Catholic 
orator, " is seen in the institutions of Paganism. Un- 
less the system be modified, and put the Christian 
(Catholic) school upon the same ground as the Godless 
school (Protestant), it requires but little sagacity to per- 
ceive its speedy and utter destruction." 

To accede to this demand would destroy our entire 
system of popular education. Upon no principle, bear- 
sanctioning a law " which decrees that religious teaching in the pub- 
lic schools must be placed in the hands of members of each separate 
confession, that any religious society may open private or special 
schools for the youth of its faith." This law, His Infallibility sol- 
emnly pronounces "abominable," "in flagrant contradiction with 
the doctrines of the Catholic religion ; with its venerable rights, its 
authority, and its divine institution ; with our power, and that of 
the Apostolic See." Consistency, that jewel ! What Popery con- 
demns in Austria, she clamors for in America. 

* Editor Freeman's Journal^ 1853. 



POPERY THE ENEMY OF CIVIL LIBERTY. 235 

ing even the semblance of justice, can money be given 
to one class and withheld from another. If Catholics 
may claim their share of the school fund, so also may 
Jews, Infidels, Rationalists, Buddhists, and every de- 
nomination of Christians. To divide the fund among 
all the claimants would utterly destroy the efficiency 
of the system, leaving our children to be educated in 
small schools under incompetent teachers. And what 
shall we say of the logic of these self-lauded champions 
of religious liberty ? Must we believe that our govern- 
ment, because it knows no state religion, is therefore 
purely atheistic ? And what is atheism but a system 
of religious negations? Shall then the Government 
establish atheistic schools ? No, to this the Catholics 
object. Shall it provide for the separate instruction of 
each sect ? Shall it sanction, encourage, and aid schools 
opened for the incoming horde of Chinese Pagans? 
Shall it disburse funds to German Rationalists to teach 
that the stories of the Bible, however sacred they may 
be to Christians, are no more worthy of credence than 
the myths of Hesiod? Shall it support schools in 
which Protestant Irish, by recounting the soul-inspiring 
incidents of the Battle of the Boyne, shall rekindle the 
dying embers of hostility to Popery? This Papists 
would never endure. Even if this Republic should 
succeed in divesting itself of everything bearing rela- 
tions to religion, Catholics would certainly complain. 
They would clamor for the introduction of Catholic 
instruction. Unless, therefore, we are prepared to 



236 POPERY THE ENEMY OF CIVIL LIBERTY. 

abolish the entire system, giving over all efforts at 
popular education, our only motto must be, " no sur- 
render." 

And none certainly have just cause of complaint. A 
system liberal and equitable — as much so as any ever 
devised — opens the school-room to all. Any class is 
of course at perfect liberty to educate its children in 
separate schools. To that no one has ever objected. 
If, however, a disaffected portion of the community 
have a right to destroy an organization in which the 
vast majority are deeply interested, then evidently 
government itself is impossible. Rome's hostility to 
our public school system shows, therefore, the deter- 
mined antagonism of Papacy to liberal institutions. 

That we do Romanists no injustice in assuming that 
the exclusion of the Bible from the public schools would 
not long satisfy them, is susceptible of clear proof. 
Already the question is entering upon a new stage. 
They loudly affirm that without Catholic instruction 
the schools are irreligious, infidel, godless. Their oft- 
repeated assertion is that to the Church belongs the 
exclusive right to educate the young. One day they 
affirm, " it is contrary to the genius of our republican 
government for the majority to dictate to the minority, 
especially in matters of faith ;" the next they shout, 
" we, the minority, have the God-given right to coerce 
the majority : the organization and control of all edu- 
cational agencies belong by divine right to us." The 
Tablet contains the following : 



POPERY THE ENEMY OF CIVIL LIBERTY. 237 

" The organization of the schools, their entire internal arrange- 
ment and management, the choice and regulation of studies, and 
the selection, appointment, and dismissal of teachers, belong exclu- 
sively to the spiritual authority" 

The Boston Advertiser affirms : 

" Catholics would not be satisfied with the public schools, even 
if the Protestant Bible and every vestige of religious teaching 
were banished from them." 

The Catholic Telegraph of Cincinnati declares : 

" It will be a glorious day for the Catholics in this country, when 
under the blows of justice and morality, our school system will be 
shivered to pieces. Until then modern Paganism will triumph." 

The Freeman's Journal speaks as follows : 

" Let the public school system go to where it came from — the devil. 
We want Christian schools, and the State cannot tell us what Chris- 
tianity is." Dec. 11, 1869. 

" Kesolved, That the public or common school system, in New 
York city, is a swindle on the people, an outrage on justice, a foul 
disgrace in matter of morals, and that it imports for the State Legisla- 
ture to abolish it forthwith." 

" There can be no sound political progress — no permanence in 
the State, where for any length of time children shall be trained 
in schools without (the Roman) religion." 

" This country has no other hope, politically or morally, except 
in the vast and controlling extension of the Catholic religion." 

It is idle to discuss the question of excluding the 
Bible from our public schools, when evidently those 
making the demand would not be satisfied if it were 
granted. Unless, therefore, we are prepared not merely 
to exclude the Bible and all Protestant text books, but 
to substitute Catholic instruction in their stead, we 



238 POPERY THE ENEMY OF CIVIL LIBERTY. 

might as well abandon all efforts to satisfy the com- 
plainants. Do they expect we will sell our birthright? 
— and for what ? — a mess of mummeries ? The Consti- 
tution of the United States provides as follows : " Reli- 
gion, morality and knowledge being necessary to a 
good government and the happiness of mankind, schools 
and the means of education shall forever be encouraged." 
What religion ? Christianity. What form of Chris- 
tianity? Protestantism, the parent of constitutional 
liberty. And who are they who demand the sacrifice 
of our public school system ? Are they the sons of our 
Protestant forefathers ? Are they not foreigners from 
the priest-ridden countries of Europe ? They who owe 
all they have acquired in the past, all they enjoy in 
the present, all they hope for in the future, to our free 
institutions, employ the very liberty we accord them in 
endeavoring to overturn our liberties. 

The Catholics, withdrawing their children, especially 
in the large cities, from the public schools, and failing 
to obtain a portion of the fund, began to solicit assist- 
ance from Legislatures and Common Councils. With 
what success these appeals were made, the appropria- 
tions of the city and State of New York too plainly 
show. In 1863, the year of the New York riots, the 
Common Council donated $78,000 to Roman Catholic 
institutions. During the year ending Sept. 30, 1866, 
the Sate of New York paid to Roman Catholic orphan 
asylums and schools $45,674. In addition to this a 
special donation of $87,000 was made to the " Society 



POPERY THE ENEMY OF CIVIL LIBERTY. 2 39 

for the Protection of Destitute Eoman Catholic Orphan 
Children." The entire contribution to the Papal 
Church this year reached $124,174. The Protestant 
sects received during the same year $2,367. Shall the 
State support the Catholic religion ? Shall it tax its 
citizens for the purpose of inculcating doctrines sub- 
versive of Republican government? It would be diffi- 
cult to conceive of injustice greater than this. 

In 1867, by enactment of the Legislature of New 
York, $110 was appropriated to every ward of " The 
Society for the Protection of Roman Catholic Orphan 
Children." For this purpose $80,000 was raised by tax 
on the city and county of New York. The city leased, 
in 1846, to the Roman Catholic Orphan Asylum, two' 
entire blocks on Fifth Avenue, for ninety-nine years, 
at one dollar per year.* Over the entire country the 

* Moneys voted from the Public Treasury of the city of New York 
for ten years ■ 



A. D. 



1860 
1861 
1862 
1863 
1864 
1865 
1866 
1867 
1868 
1869 



Totals. 



$5,430.00 

31,560.80 

45,253.49 

91,522.11 

87,094.40 

63,552.66 

47,407.02 

133,100.40 

153,296.98 

528,742.47 



Roman Catholic 
Institutions. 



i Te n Yenrs 1,186,960.33 89 7,039.00 1>89^92L33 



$18,791.27 

9,153.63 

78,000.00 

73,000.00 

40,000.00 

21,607.24 

120,000.00 

124,424.60 

412,062.26 



Protestant, 

Charitable, 

Jewish, Public, 

and all other 
Religious Insti- 
tutions. 



$5,430.00 
12,769.53 
36,099.86 
13,522.11 
14,094.40 
23,552.66 
25,799.78 
13,100.40 
2S,872.38 
116,680.21 



240 POPERY THE ENEMY OF CIVIL LIBERTY. 

same spirit prevails. Even in the far west, Idaho and 
Colorado each appropriated $50,000 for Catholic schools. 

Catholic consciences, so tender about the tax for 
public schools, silence their throbbings long enough to 
allow the acceptance of taxes paid by Protestants to 
schools intensely sectarian. Hands that would be de- 
filed by touching Protestant Bibles, handle Protestant 
money with impunity. And they want even more 
than our money. A bill introduced into the New York 
Legislature by the party bidding for Catholic votes, and 
earnestly advocated, proposes a fine of one hundred 
dollars on any institution, public or private, incorpo- 
rated or not incorporated, and upon any Protestant 
guardian, presuming to impart religious instruction to 
a Roman Catholic child. The faith of the drunken, 
houseless, shiftless father shall determine the belief of 
even the child that eats the bread of Protestant charity. 
Having stolen from our State treasuries large sums for 
the support of their schools, asjdums, and hospitals, 
why not at once enact a law compelling us to support 
their poor, and instruct their children in the tenets of 
Catholicism ? As it would be a good speculation, con- 
science need not make them linger. They who have 
stolen the chickens might as well take the coop. 

And the schools, aided by these munificent dona- 
tions, are maintained for the express purpose of incul- 
cating the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church. 
In the report (1866) of the "Society for the Protection 
of Roman Catholic Orphan Children," this is expressly 



POPERY THE ENEMY OF CIVIL LIBERTY. 241 

affirmed. The Freeman s Journal once said : " This 
subject (the school question) contains in it the whole 
question of the progress and triumphs of the Catholic 
Church in the next generation in this country." Their 
schools are strictly sectarian. The Catechism is taught. 
The children cross themselves before a crucifix. Bow- 
ing before an image of the Virgin they repeat, " Hail, 
Mary, full of grace, our Lord is with thee, pray for us 
sinners now and in the hour of death." In one of their 
reading books, " Duty of a Christian towards God," 
occur these words : " We sin by irreverence in profan- 
ing churches, the relics of the saints, the images, the 

holy water, and other such things The use 

of images is exceedingly beneficial It is goo.d 

and useful to invoke them (the saints) that we may 
obtain from God those graces of which we stand in 
need. ..... A true child of Mary will say every 

day some prayers in her honor." In the Cathechism 
published by Sadlier & Co., N. Y., and taught in their 
schools, the second commandment, " Thou shalt not 
make unto thee any graven image," etc., is entirely 
suppressed. In another text-book we find the follow- 
ing : " What is baptism ? " " It is a sacrament which 
regenerates us in Jesus Christ by giving us the spirit- 
ual life of grace, and which makes us the children of 
God and of the Church." " Does baptism efface sin ? " 
" Yes : in children it effaces original sin ; and in adults, 
besides original sin, it effaces all the actual sin which 

they may have committed before being baptized." " Is 
16 



242 POPERY THE ENEMY OF CIVIL LIBERTY. 

baptism necessary for salvation ? " " Yes : it is so 
necessary for the salvation of men, that even children 
cannot be saved without receiving it." " Of whom is 
this (the Devil's party) composed?" "Of all the 
wicked, Pagans, Jews, infidels, heretics, and all bad 
Christians." In a " Synopsis of Moral Theology," pre- 
pared for theological students, this question occurs: 
"Are heretics rightly punished with death?" "St. 
Thomas says Yes, because forgers of money, and distur- 
bers of the State are justly punished with death ; there- 
fore also heretics, who are forgers of the faith, are justly 
punished with death." The dogma of Infallibility, and 
the doctrine of Purgatory are also taught. In one of 
the Catechisms now in use it is asked, " Can the Church 
err in w T hat she teaches ? " " No, she cannot err in 
matters of faith." " What do you mean by purgatory?" 
"A middle state of souls suffering for a time on account 
of their sins." "Are all the souls in purgatory helped 
by our prayers ? " " Yes, they are." 

Yerily, only a Jesuit can see the justice in taxing 
Protestants for the purpose of making munificent dona- 
tions — $400,000 in a single city in a single year — to 
schools in which such instructions are given. And 
while receiving the gift, they complain piteously of our 
injustice in denying them the right of converting our 
common schools into nurseries of Papal superstition. 

Catholics by their crouching subserviency to a 
foreign despot are disqualified from becoming good Re- 
publican citizens. Bound by solemn obligations to the 



POPERY THE ENEMY OF CIVIL LIBERTY. 243 

only Sovereign whom they can in conscience recognize, 
loyalty, if indeed it be loyalty, is suspended on the will 
of the Pope. And he, Peters successor, can, says the 
canon law, dispense with oaths and vows of allegiance, 
even the most sacred. That this arrogant ruler must 
of necessity, if faithful to the principles of his Church, 
claim sovereignty even in temporal affairs over Repub- 
licans, even in this country, can be proved beyond con- 
tradiction from assertions of eminent Papal writers, 
from the acts of the Popes, from canon law, and from 
the decrees of at least eight general Councils.* He 
wears the triple crown surmounted by the cross. He 
denominates himself, " Lord of all the earth." Did ever 
assumption equal this ? All other claims of authority 
are mere moonshine — a pleasing delusion. "When the 
claims of our country come in collision with his — he 
being judge — the Catholic must obey the latter on pain 

* " The spiritual power must rule the temporal, by all means and 
expedients, when necessary." — Bellarmine. 

" It is the duty of the Eoman Catholic Church to compel heretics, 
by corporal punishment, to submit to her faith."— Dens' Theology (a 
Catholic text-book). 

"A Eoman Pontiff can absolve persons even from oaths of allegi- 
ance." — Can. Authoritatis 2, caus. 15, quest. 6, pt. 2. 

"All things denned by the canons and general Councils, and espe- 
cially by the Synod of Trent (these declare the Pope an absolute tem- 
poral Sovereign), I undoubtedly receive and profess ; and all things 
contrary to them I reject and curse. And this Catholic faith I will 
teach and enforce on my dependents and flock."— From the oath ad- 
ministered to priests. 



244 POPERY THE ENEMY OF CIVIL LIBERTY. 

of mortal sin, perjury.* Can such slaves ever become 
good citizens in a free Republic ? 

And this claim, so resolutely maintained in the past, 
is adhered to in the present. The Syllabus of 1864, 
which contains ten general charges, supported by eighty 
specifications, denominated " damnable heresies" de- 
nounces all the leading ideas of Republicanism, in fact, 
of modern civilization. It is an indictment of all Pro- 
testant educational agencies, of marriage by civil con- 
tract, of the independence of Church and State, of free- 
dom of the press, of Bible societies, of the functions of 
modern legislation, of Democratic forms of government, 
and of the existing relations between the governed and 
the governing classes. In a letter addressed to Pros- 
per Gueranger, an ardent defender of the Infallibility 
dogma, the Pope says : " This madness (Gallicanism) 
reaches such a height that they undertake to reform 

* The Bishop's oath contains the following : " To the extent of my 
power, I will observe the Pope's commands (in temporal as well as 
spiritual things, for so the Pope explains the oath) ; and I ivill make 
others observe them : and I will persecute all heretics and all rebels to 
my Lord the Pope." 

The famous bull against the two sons of wrath begins : "The au- 
thority given to St. Peter and his successors, by the immense power 
of the Eternal King, excels all the powers of earthly kings and prin- 
ces. It passes uncontrollable sentence upon them all ; ... . it takes 
most severe vengeance of them, casting them down from their thrones 
though ever so puissant, and tumbling them down to the lowest parts 
of the earth as the ministers of aspiring Lucifer." 

" He who prefers a king to a priest, does prefer the creature to the 
Creator."— Morn. Exer. on Popery, p. 67. 



POPERY THE ENEMY OF CIVIL LIBERTY. 245 

even the divine constitution of the Church, and to 
adapt it to the modern forms of civil government." 

Evident and well authenticated as is Rome's claim 
' to temporal power over her subjects, and her conse- 
quent inherent hostility to Republicanism, Jesuits, with 
an effrontery that Satan himself might covet, peremp- 
torily deny it. They pretend to love our form of gov- 
ernment, to laud our liberty, and to wish for us a 
future of success. 

" Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes." 
Father Hecker — founder of the community of Paul- 
ist Fathers, New York, whose special mission it is to 
bring the steam printing-press to bear upon the spread 
of the Catholic religion in the United States, and who 
furnish most of the literary matter for the Publication 
Society, including tracts, the articles in the Catholic 
World, and volumes for Sunday schools — in a lecture 
delivered in Horticultural Hall, Philadelphia (Jan. 19, 
1871), entitled " The Church and the Republic," boldly 
affirms, in the face of all history, that Protestantism is 
essentially hostile to Republicanism, and Catholicism 
its unwearied friend. His only argument, laboriously 
drawn out to nearly an hour's length, is summed up in 
this syllogism : 

Protestants teach that man is totally depraved. (Un- 
true.) 
They who believe in total depravity are incapable 
of self-government. (Untrue.) 
.-. Protestants are enemies of Republicanism. (Doubly 
untrue.) 



246 POPERY THE ENEMY OF CIVIL LIBERTY. 

And what shall we think of the propriety, to say 
nothing of the honesty, of affirming that Catholicism is 
the firm friend, the only true friend of Republican 
forms of government, and of making this assertion at' 
the very time when all Catholics are clamorously 
shouting that Pius IX. shall be reinstated in temporal 
power against the will, formally and emphatically ex- 
pressed, of those whom he proposes to govern ? When 
every Catholic city in the United States, almost every 
Catholic church, is ringing with protests against what 
they choose to denominate the robbery of St. Peter, 
and every means, fair and foul, is employed to induce 
the Governments of Europe, and even the United 
States, to demand that the worst despotism which 
modern times has known, shall be resurrected and 
forced upon an unwilling people, — at this very time, 
Father Hecker dares to stand before an audience of 
American freemen, and affirm, " We Catholics are the 
truest, the best, the only firm friends of civil liberty, 
which is the gift of our Church to the world." 

Popery's hostility to free institutions is manifested 
in ways almost innumerable. A priest some months 
ago peremptorily refused to give testimony in a St. 
Louis court, on the ground that by the authority of 
the Pope, the priesthood was under no obligation to 
obey the civil law.* In the city of Boston a man, be- 

* "A priest cannot be forced to give testimony before a secular 
judge." — Taberna, vol. ii. p. 288. 

" The rebellion of priests is not treason, for they are not subject to 
civil government." — Emmanuel Sa. 



POPERY THE ENEMY OF CIVIL LIBERTY. 247 

lieved to be a murderer by ninety-nine in every hun- 
dred who heard the evidence, was recently acquitted, 
because, on one trial, two jurors, on the next, one, ob- 
stinately refused to unite with the rest in conviction, 
and apparently, and in the opinion of the lawyers and 
judges, simply because they belonged to the same bro- 
therhood, the immutable, infallible Church of Rome. 
During our recent struggle in breaking the chains of 
slavery — a struggle involving the question of national 
existence — the Catholics, true to their time-honored 
principles, proved themselves hostile to our Govern- 
ment. We speak advisedly. "We know they boast 
much of their loyalty. It is indeed true that in the 
first year of the war many enlisted. Rome had not 
yet spoken. Carried along by the irresistible tide of 
patriotism they enthusiastically joined in the cry> 
" Secession is treason, and must be punished." In the 
second year of the war, however, Archbishop Hughes 
visited Europe. Almost the first intimation we had 
of his presence at the Vatican was the acknowledg- 
ment by the Pope of the independence of the Confede- 
rate States. A written benediction was forwarded to 
Jefferson Davis, addressing him as "Illustrious and 
Honorable President." 

Very soon enlistments among the Irish ceased almost 
entirely. Desertions became frequent. The entire 
Catholic population became intensely hostile to the 

"A common priest is as much better than a king, as a man is 
better than a beast." — Demoulin. 



248 POPERY THE ENEMY OF CIVIL LIBERTY. 

Government. Banded together, they declared, in lan- 
guage not to be mistaken, their determination to resist 
the draft. Riots were by no means infrequent, and 
would no doubt have been more numerous but for the 
apparent hopelessness of the effort to resist the will of 
the American people. Who inspired this fiendish 
malevolence? Who instigated outrages like those in 
New York ? Was the Pope's temporal power unfelt on 
this continent? Were we not furnished with illustra- 
tions frequent and painful that the first allegiance of 
our Catholic citizens is due to their spiritual sovereign 
in Rome ? 

And the assassination of President Lincoln, how 
strangely is it connected with Rome's hostility to our 
Republican Government. The deed was planned in the 
home of a devout Catholic. It was associated in its 
inception with the prayers and hopes of the Romish 
Church. One of the prominent actors, aided in his 
escape by our Catholic enemies in Canada, found refuge 
in a convent, and afterwards became a soldier in the 
army of Pius IX. These and other circumstances — all 
possibly purely fortuitous — taken in connection with the 
known principles of Romanism and the well-established 
fact that Catholics, during the last years of the war, 
were intensely disloyal, certainly reflect little honor on 
Popery's ability to inspire devotion to civil liberty. If, 
as St. Liguori says, " Although a thing may be against 
God, nevertheless, on account of the virtue of obedience, 
the subject who does that thing, does not sin" certainly it 



POPERY TEE ENEMY OF CIVIL LIBERTY. 249 

is reasonable to believe that Papists prefer the favor of 
the Pope, even if purchased by unwarrantable means, 
to the empty gratitude of their adopted country. The 
editor of the Catholic Quarterly, waxing bold, once 
said : " Protestants are not to inquire whether the 
Catholic Church is hostile to civil and religious liberty 
or not ; but whether that Church is founded in divine 
right. If the Papacy be founded in divine right, it is 
supreme over whatever is founded only in human right, 
and then your institutions should be made to harmonize 
with it, and not it with your institutions .... Liberty 
of conscience is unknown among Catholics. The word 
liberty shoidd be banished from the domain of religion. 
It is neither more nor less than a fiction to say that a 
man has the right to choose his own religion." 

Popery, to borrow a figure from Augustine, is the 
proud and gorgeous city of superstition, set over 
against the Church of God, which it attacks with all 
the forces which bigotry and malice can invent ; or to 
change the figure, it is a vast political engine, employed 
in the effort to crush out the liberties of the human 
race. The Catholic World (endorsed by the highest 
dignitaries of Rome, including the Pope himself), in 
the leading article of July, 1870, entitled "The Catho- 
lic of the Nineteenth Century," asserts in unmistak- 
able language the supreme duty of the Papists to obey 
the commands of the Pope, and seek, in every way, and 
especially by means of the ballot, to render the Papal 
policy effective in this country. Its first assertion, 



250 POPERY THE ENEMY OF CIVIL LIBERTY. 

" The Catholic, like the Church, is one and the same 
in all ages," is followed by the still more arrogant affir- 
mation, the Koman Catholic religion is, " with reference 
to time as well as eternity," " absolutely perfect," " as 
perfect as God." This is the basis of the obligation, 
felt by every " dutiful subject," " to vindicate with prop- 
erty, liberty and life," the supremacy of the head of 
the Church. If the Pope's authority and that of any 
civil government "come in conflict upon any vital 
point," the Papist is to do, " in the nineteenth century, 
precisely as he did in the first, second, or the third." 
Legislation is valid only when in harmony with Catho- 
licism, "the organic law;" all other is "unjust, cruel, 
tyrannical, false, vain, unstable, and weak, and not en- 
titled to respect or obedience" This has one transcendent 
virtue, clearness. And how is our legislation to be 
brought into harmony with "the organic law infalli- 
bly announced?" By "the mild and peaceful influence 
of the ballot, directed by instructed Catholic con- 
science." And how shall Romanists know which way 
to vote ? " The Catholic Church is the medium and 
channel through which the will of God is expressed." 
His will is announced to men " from the chair of St. 
Peter." To what extent must this devotion to Popery 
be carried? "We do not hesitate to affirm that in 
performing our duties as citizens, electors, and public 
officers, we should always and under all circumstances 
act simply as CatJiolics" " The Catholic armed with 
his vote becomes the champion of faith, law, order, so- 



POPERY THE ENEMY OF CIVIL LIBERTY. 251 

cial and political morality, and Christian civilization." 
By the ballot he must place " the regulation and con- 
trol of marriage " where it " exclusively belongs," in the 
hands of the Romish priesthood. And the rightful con- 
trol of marriage "implies, by necessity, the Catholic view 
of all the relations and obligations growing out of it ; the 
education of the young, the custody of foundlings and 
orphans, and all measures of correction and reformation 
applicable to youthful offenders and disturbers of the 
peace of society." 

Another victory to be achieved by Catholic votes is 
the destruction of " a godless system of education," or — 
which is the same thing — an uncatholic system, and the 
substitution of the perfect system of that Church which 
" flatly contradicts the assumption on the part of the 
State of the prerogative of education." Nor is this the 
only arduous task laid on the Catholic voters of the 
nineteenth century. They are to legislate all existing 
evils out of the world and into eternal oblivion ; red- 
republicanism, Fourierism, communism, free love, Mor- 
monism, mesmerism, phrenology, spiritism, sentimental 
philanthropy, sensuality, poverty, and woman's rights. 
They propose to vote all men into holiness; if not, 
certainly into servitude. And then, too, over us Pro- 
testants, who freely accord them the privilege of 
denouncing severally and collectively every institution 
considered essential to civil liberty, they hope by the 
omnipotent power of the ballot to erect " a censorship 
of ideas, and the right to examine and approve or dis- 



252 POPERY THE ENEMY OF CIVIL LIBERTY. 

approve all books, publications, writings, and utterances 
intended for public instruction, enlightenment or enter- 
tainment, and the supervision of places of amusement." 
Champions of liberty ! Gladly would we add more quo- 
tations from an article, all of which so well deserves 
the serious consideration of every lover of his country. 
Want of space forbids. With one, showing the kind 
of republicanism which the author loves, we close : — 
" The temporal government of the head of the Church is 
to-day (July, 1870) the best in the world." His sub- 
jects evidently thought otherwise. 

Catholics are strangely consistent friends of liberty, 
if we may judge from the riots in New York, July 12th, 
1870, the anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne, when 
unoffending Orangemen peacefully celebrating the day 
commemorative of the victory of William of Orange over 
James II., and the consequent ascendancy of the Protes- 
tant religion, were attacked; some killed and many 
wounded. And the Catholic papers of the city — where 
for many long years Catholics have been permitted unin- 
terruptedly to form processions on Sundays, and to cele- 
brate St. Patrick's and other days, blocking up the 
streets, excluding Protestants from their own sanctuaries, 
and making every demonstration calculated to exas- 
perate them — argue, with surprising unanimity, that 
" this miserable faction ought not to be allowed to 
madden this nation by their annual celebration." 
Have Protestants no rights which Catholics need 
respect ? 



POPERY THE ENEMY OF CIVIL LIBERTY. 253 

It was left, however, for the year 1871, to witness a 
still more emphatic illustration of the intense devotion 
felt by our Catholic fellow-citizens to the doctrine of 
popular liberty. The Orangemen of New York having 
resolved to celebrate, notwithstanding the riotous pro- 
ceedings of last year, the anniversary of the defeat of 
their enemies, nearly two centuries ago, the Roman 
Catholics announced their determination to suppress a 
public parade. The city authorities, quailing before 
the threats of those whose united vote, uniformly cast 
in the interest of political Romanism, elects to office or 
consigns to oblivion, surrendered and forbade the pro- 
cession. " It is given out," said the superintendent of 
police, at the dictation of the Mayor, " that armed pre- 
parations for defence have been made by the parading 
lodges." Was it not first announced, however, that 
armed preparations had been made for an attack ? Is 
Protestantism destitute of even the right to prepare for 
self-defence ? Must we set it down as a fixed fact that 
when Catholics object to a procession, and arm for its 
suppression, it may not occur ? And for such liberty 
New York — its wealth mostly in the hands of Protes- 
tants — pays $50,000,000 a year. Another pretext was, 
that processions in the streets are not matters of right, 
but merely of toleration. This important legal fact it 
seems was allowed to sleep in> the ponderous tomes of 
the City Hall till a band of desperadoes chose to an- 
nounce their determined purpose of preventing the 
Orange parade. Why was not this decision pro- 



25-1 POPERY THE ENEMY OF CIVIL LIBERTY. 

claimed prior to the overwhelming processions of St. 
Patrick's day ? Why are Catholic parades allowed both 
in the least frequented and the most important business 
streets of the city? If the circumstances had been 
reversed, and Orangemen had threatened a riot if 
Roman Catholics were permitted to celebrate the honors 
of Ireland's patron-saint, who does not know that the 
city officers would have thundered their determination 
to defend the inalienable rights of American Citizens ? 
Not less absurd is the pretext, as flimsy as it is spe- 
cious, that foreign events and feuds are not to be 
allowed the opportunity of perpetuating their memory 
on American soil. Were not the Germans permitted, 
in their boisterous rejoicings over a united fatherland, to 
flaunt their banners in the very faces of the deeply 
humiliated and bitterly exasperated Frenchmen ? 

So intense and wide-spread was the popular indig- 
nation — showing that Protestants though submissive 
are not slaves — that the Governor issued a circular, 
pledging protection to the much-abused Protestant 
Irish, promising them the support of the strong arm of 
the State. The 12th of July, accordingly, witnessed an 
inspiring scene, the State in her majesty affirming that 
every class of its citizens, whether Orangemen, Ger- 
mans, Frenchmen, Chinese, or Hottentots, whether two 
or ten thousand, should be defended in their rights; 
that a frenzied mob, though composed of infuriated 
Romanists, must respect the fundamental principle of 
American liberty, or take the consequences. The 



POPERY THE ENEMY OF CIVIL LIBERTY. 255 

bigoted intolerance of their enemies thus thrust a small 
but heroic band of Orangemen into a prominence which 
they had otherwise in all probability never attained \ 
securing for them the warm sympathy of every true 
patriot. These accidental representatives of a principle 
ever dear to the American people were escorted — all 
honor to the Governor of New York — by the militia 
and police, the superintendent joyously redeeming him- 
self from the deep infamy to which political trickery 
had so nearly consigned him. Yet, notwithstanding 
the armed escort, an attack with clubs, brick-bats and 
firearms was made, necessitating a return fire from 
the defenders of law and order, and leaving more than 
a score of dead bodies, and over two hundred wounded, 
to mark the scene of Popery's ardent devotion to liberty. 
Eighth avenue and Twenty-third street witnessed the 
inculcation of a lesson which it is earnestly hoped will 
be long remembered alike by Protestants and Catholics ; 
by the former as evincing the spirit of Popery, by the 
latter as an indication, in fact an emphatic declaration, 
that Protestants, at least in their own land, will reso- 
lutely defend the principles of Republican Government. 
We are told, however, that not Eomanists, but 
Hibernians, a class of persons only nominally Catho- 
lics, are responsible for the riot and its accompanying 
horrors ; that the priests, foreseeing the dangers, urged 
their congregations not to interfere with the proposed 
procession ; that Archbishop McCloskey exhorted his 
flock " to make no counter demonstration of any kind." 



256 POPERY THE ENEMY OF CIVIL LIBERTY. 

He referred, however, with exceeding bitterness to the 
Orangemen, and expressed it as his deep conviction 
that the parade ought not to be permitted. It is 
undeniably true that Catholics, with scarcely a dis- 
senting voice, said, with an emphasis not to be mis- 
taken, " Protestants as a body shall not parade in the 
streets of New York." And the entire Catholic press 
of New York — the Tablet alone excepted — studiedly 
ignored the bare existence of Protestant rights. Among 
the headings of their leading editorials, after the riot, 
were the following: "Governor Hoffman's Bloody 
Procession ! " " Is John T. Hoffman, Governor of the 
State of New York, a Murderer?" " Hoffman's Holo- 
caust ! " " Hoffman's Massacre !" " Our Orange 
Governor ! " etc.* 

The psychological explanation of such hearty devo- 
tion to liberty we scarcely know how to make. We 
would sooner attempt to explain how some men — 
" midway from nothing to the Deity " — succeed in con- 

* "We call upon the friends of the murdered citizens, bj T every 
duty which they owe to society and to themselves, to raise this issue 
at the proper tribunals of the country, and impeach Gov. Hoffman 
before a jury of his peers to answer to a charge of murder." — The 
Irish People. 

"Gov. Hoffman is answerable for the whole of it, and— we say it 
with pain— is guilty of every drop of blood shed that day." — TJxe Irish 
Citizen. 

" Let the cry of the orphan, whose home he has left desolate, blast 
him ! And let the hot tear of the widow, whose heart he has made 
sere, rot him in his pride of place and imperious despotism ! 

"The greatest mistake made in the whole massacre business seems 



POPERY THE ENEMY OF CIVIL LIBERTY. 257 

vincing themselves that they are atheists, notwith- 
standing the entire class have so far signally failed in 
persuading the world that a genuine consistent atheist 
has ever existed. Possibly we might conceive an 
explanation of the singular phenomenon that human 
beings, possessed of bodies, living on the earth, eating 
bread, and drinking laudanum-negus, can reason 
themselves into the belief that they are really idealists, 
believing that the entire material universe, with its 
myriad forms of life, is a mere phantom, a conception 
of their own brain. Nor is it, perhaps, entirely impos- 
sible to imagine how some may dream themselves into 
the belief that God is everything, and everything God ; 
that this impersonal, unconscious Deity sighs in the 
wind, smiles in the sunbeam, glitters in the dewdrop, 
rustles in the leaf, moans in the ocean, speaks in the 
thunder ; that each person is part and parcel of God, a 
visible manifestation of the Invisible, one conscious 
drop of the unconscious ocean of being, existing for a 
brief moment between two vast eternities, a past and a 

to be that Mayor Hall did not arrest John T. Hoffman for inter- 
fering with the peace of the city."— The Irish World. 

" The ' sober second thought ' of the people, lately so excited, will 
consign John T. Hoffman to the obscurity from which he has arisen 
by luckier rnanoeuvrings." — Freemayi's Journal. 

The Society, formed on the day of the riot, in Hibernia Hall, "by 
the unanimous decision of all patriotic Irish soldiers present," and 
which, it was affirmed, should prove "no delusion," among others of 
similar import, unanimously passed the following resolution : — " That 
we call upon all Irishmen in these States to form themselves into a 
combination for self-protection." 
17 



258 POPERY THE ENEMY OF CIVIL LIBERTY. 

future ; coming, we know not whence ; going, we know 
not whither, a troubled thought in the dream of half- 
sleeping nature ; sinking, like the ripple on the ocean, 
upon the heaving bosom of emotionless Infinitude. We 
might even venture a defence, or at least an apology, 
of the custom prevalent in Siam, of exposing the mother, 
for one month after the delivery of a child, on a 
cushionless bench before a roasting fire. Nay, we 
might even undertake to explain the couvade — a cus- 
tom widely prevalent in the thirteenth century, and 
even now, Max Muller informs us, extant among the 
Mau-tze ; according to which the father of a new-born 
child, as soon as its mother regains her accustomed 
strength, goes to bed, and there, fed on gruel, tapioca, 
and that quintessence of insipidness, panada, receives 
the congratulations of his friends. Even this custom, 
ridiculous as it is, and which prompted Sir Hudibras 

to say, — 

" Chineese go to bed, 
And lie-in in their ladies' stead," 

is susceptible of an explanation at least semi-rational. 
But how to explain the idiosyncrasies of our Irish 
fellow-citizens, how to reconcile their conduct with their 
oft reiterated protestations of devotion to civil liberty, 
we know not. Call that liberty which has naught of 
liberty save its name, which has all of despotism save 
its manliness ! Such faith as that which prompts 
Catholics to denominate Popery the stanch defender 
of freedom — if it be faith — we have seldom, if indeed 



POPERY THE ENEMY OF CIVIL LIBERTY. 259 

ever, found, certainly not among Protestant Americans, 
scarcely among the Communists of Paris, or the en- 
lightened citizens of Terra del Fuego. 

And what interpretation shall be given to this sad, 
this long-drawn wail of the Papal Church, in all parts 
of the United States, over the Pope's loss of temporal 
power?* As he and the Catholic Episcopate have de- 
clared the civil sovereignty indispensably necessary to 
the due exercise of his rightful spiritual supremacy, 
these liberty-loving Americans — having escaped from 
the cruel oppression of Catholic governments to pro- 
claim themselves the stanch friends of liberty — are 
holding meetings, in cathedrals, in public squares, form- 
ing processions, making speeches, and signing protests 
against — what? — against that cruel despotism which 
has for centuries disgraced the " States of the Church ?" 
No ; against the liberation of a people who have been 
long hoping and struggling for freedom, and who have 
been kept down, only by foreign bayonets in the hands 
of Catholics, by the ill-fated Napoleon, and the mis- 
guided Papal Zouaves. 

And these protests— " full of sound and fury, sig- 
nifying nothing," reiterating for the thousandth time 

* The Archbishop of Baltimore, in a plea with Catholic ladies, 
affirms :— " Their Father in Christ, like St. Peter, is in chains, robbed 
of the very necessaries of life, reduced to the very verge of want, and 
almost — starvation, and wholly at the mercies of his enemies, who 
are also the enemies of Christ, and of all religion, and all virtue." 
To call this a liberal draft upon an excited imagination is too mild, 
too charitable entirely. 



260 POPERY THE ENEMY OF CIVIL LIBERTY. 

the infamous falsehood, "The Church in chains/' 
" Peter in prison," and entirely ignoring the rights of 
the people who have deliberately chosen Italian unity 
— all claim temporal power for the Pope ; many, sanc- 
tioned by office-hunting politicians, even, denying the 
validity of any plebiscitum against the Pope's sovereign 
rights, even when fairly and freely taken.* Certainly 
these lengthy and carefully prepared documents — now 
crowding the pages of every Catholic paper, and making 
them, which is evidently needless, even more intensely 
political than ever before — may be legitimately denomi- 
nated, The solemn Protest of American Papists against 
Republican forms of Government, against the Liberties 
of the People. 

What is to be the end of all this bluster and war of 
words ? If the Catholic papers are to be believed, there 
is to be no rest — movements creating sentiment, senti- 
ment distilling into purpose, purpose developing into 
action, war in Italy, crusades from America, havoc and 
bloodshed — till the Vicar of Christ is again on his 
throne. f 

* In the Philadelphia protest, read at a meeting which, according 
to the Freeman"* s Journal, numbered 30,000, this language occurs : — 
" We do not believe that the ' States of the Church ' ever did, or now 
do, desire Italian unity ; but even if they did, they had no right to de- 
mand it." 

The same thing is affirmed in the Catholic World, Nov., 1870, p. 284. 

f See Freeman's Journal, Dec. 10th, 17th, 24th, and 31st, 1870, etc. 

"If there is nothing but a stupid grunt in response to the call of 
God, then there will be in this land of ours either a bloody persecu- 
tion or an infamous apostasy." — Freeman's Journal, Feb. 11, 1871. 



POPERY TEE ENEMY OF CIVIL LIBERTY. 261 

All over Europe men are volunteering to join the 
crusade against popular government. Funds are pour- 
ing into the Pope's treasury. The faithful, even in 
democratic America, are asked to contribute. And the 
response has been such as to inspire bishops and arch- 
bishops, and even the despondent Pope himself, with 
new energy and fresh hopes. In Baltimore, at the 
Pontifical Jubilee, (the twenty-fifth anniversary of the 
accession of Pius IX. to the Papal throne,) that " beam 
from the immortal throne of St. Peter," that "jewel fit 
to be placed in the Tiara," when, according to Catholic 
authority, " twenty thousand, by receiving communion 
for Our Holy Father, promised to do all in their power 
to effect his restoration," sixty men, dressed in the uni- 
form of the Papal Zouave, knelt by the communion 
rails in St. James, "not as an idle pageant, not for 
mere form's sake, but to proclaim what they and the 
Catholic Church will do when the time comes. By 
this they have given pledge of their espousal of the 
cause of the captive Pontiff." * - St. Peter, a new Catho- 
lic paper of New York, says : — " To say it (the crusade) 

* " This is not an act of transitory fervor, or the enthusiasm of the 
hour. By this act the Catholics of the United States of America 
have taken their stand with those of Europe and Canada. The 
fervor and enthusiasm of the hour will settle down into permanent 
and determined resolve, and by union with all parts of Christendom 
take a tangible and denned purpose. It is what the Pope predicted 
in saying that if union of actiou, resulting from identity of thought 
and feeling, be amongst Catholics, the gates of hell shall not pre vail.' ' 
— Correspondence of Freeman's Journal, July 8, 3-871. 



262 POPERY THE ENEMY OF CIVIL LIBERTY. 

is not necessary, is equivalent to denying the necessary 
right of self-defence. Catholics have, by degrees, seen 
themselves despoiled by the revolution of their most 
precious rights. We have been patient, but we will 
not be slaves. "What form the new crusade may take 
we know not ; but a crusade there truly will be to de- 
liver the Sepulchre of Peter and the Catholic world." 

And the methods employed in securing funds for this 
and similar holy purposes are indeed worthy the in- 
ventive genius of St. Dominic. Among others, all 
shrewd, the raffle for the Pope's sacred snuff-box strikes 
the infidel world as characteristically ingenious. The 
Prisoner Pope, "the most august of the poor," gave, 
March 17, 1871, to Dr. Giovanni Acquiderni, President 
of the upper council of the association of the Catholic 
youth of Italy, "his gold snuff-box, exquisitively 
carved with two symbolic lambs in the midst of flowers 
and foliage," to be disposed of for the benefit of Holy 
Mother Church. Dr. Acquiderni, " anxious speedily to 
fulfil the sacred desire of the octogenarian Father and 
Pontiff," opened a general subscription of offerings of 
one franc each. All good Catholics in the United 
States were earnestly exhorted to contribute twenty 
cents, and thereby secure a chance of one day possess- 
ing this sacred souvenir. They were assured — lest 
possibly lack of confidence might lessen the subscrip- 
tion — that " at the completion of the Pontifical Jubilee, 
Dr. Acquiderni will have an urn prepared containing 
as many tickets as there may be franc offerings, and in 



g>o(yaG > viJcA3CNse^)(gv9e^c> (S|5Z&0S|B5ulS15 



ir 




DRAWING THE CHANCES FOR THE SNUFF-BOX OF PIUS IX. 



POPERY THE ENEMY OF CIVIL LIBERTY. 263 

the presence of a Notary Public, proceed to the ex- 
traction of the fortunate name that will indicate the 
new possessor of the snuff-box of Pope Pius IX., which 
will be immediately sent to the address marked after 
his signature in the subscription list." 

What Patrick or Bridget was the fortunate drawer of 
this matchless prize, the uninitiated have not yet 
learned. Infallibility — if it is important the world 
should know — -will no doubt inform us, explaining, per- 
chance, at the same time the full import of those two 
symbolic lambs, symbols of a world-wide crusade. 

As Protestants we have no fears. If Popery, in de- 
fying the common conscience of humanity, resisting the 
spirit of the age, and challenging the scorn of its own 
most liberal-minded men, wishes to commit suicide, let 
it go on. 

Already Catholics, "standing afar off," in Ireland, 
England, Germany, Oregon, Washington, New York, 
Philadelphia, in every country and city, are mournfully 
exclaiming, "Alas, alas! that great city, that mighty 
city, for in one hour is thy judgment come." 

Nor has Eomanism shown less hostility to another 
principle of our national life, the separation of Church 
and State. This, which Protestants have ever viewed 
as one of the defences of civil liberty, has been and 
now is the object of incessant attack. Almost every 
Pope for the last thousand years has pronounced it a 
" damnable heresy." Schleigel, a member of the Leo- 
pold Foundation, in lecturing to the crowned heads 



264 POPERY THE ENEMY OF CIVIL LIBERTY. 

of Europe with the design of showing the mutual sup- 
ports which Popery and monarchy lend to and receive 
from each other, said : — " Church and State must 
always be united, and it is essential to the existence 
of each that a Pope be at the head of the one, and an 
Emperor at the head of the other .... Protestantism 
and Republicanism is the cause and source of all the 
discords, and disorders and wars of Europe." (Vol. 
iii. Lect. 17, p. 286.) Again : — " The real nursery of all 
these destructive principles, the revolutionary schools 
of France and the rest of Europe, has been North 
America." This Antichrist, the union of Church and 
State, even the Pope St. Gregory himself being witness, 
was cradled in Rome. 

Of Popery's opposition to the freedom of the press, 
the free circulation of the Bible, and liberty of con- 
science, we have no time to speak. These may find a 
place in our next Chapter. Our task, in proving 
Romanism hostile to Republicanism, is completed. 
Further proof is needless. It must certainly be evi- 
dent to every one of our fellow-citizens that where the 
principles and spirit of Popery attain full power, 
Republicanism must soon perish, and over her grave, 
the grave of man s hopes for this life, the lordly priest, 
representative of civil and ecclesiastical despotism, shall 
exultingly shout, " Thus always : Popery alone has 



PERMANENCY." 




CHAPTER III. 

THE PAPACY A FOE TO RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. 

E presume it is already manifest to every unbiassed 
reader that Romanism is a necessary and deter- 
mined enemy of all liberty, civil and religious. 
Her cardinal principle takes away the right of 
private judgment, denying the subject the privilege of 
even obeying the clear teachings of conscience, thus for- 
bidding him to use the very faculties God has given him, 
and for the proper exercise of which he alone is account- 
able. The people must receive their opinions from, 
and rely implicitly upon the priests ; these are under 
the spiritual authority of bishops, and these under the 
Pope. Hence he alone has the right to think, — he 
alone has liberty: his is absolute. The people have 
an existence merely for the good of Christ's vicegerent 
on earth, who owns them soul and body, life and 
property. 

Rome — certainly none will deny — proves herself an 
enemy of religious liberty by condemning the use of 
the Bible. The Council of Trent declared :— " It is 
manifest from experience that if the Holy Bible, trans- 
lated into the vulgar tongue, be indiscriminately allowed 

to every one, the rashness of men will cause more evil 

265 



266 TEE PAPACY A FOE TO RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. 

than good to arise from it." Accordingly they condemn 
its use, and do everything in their power to prevent 
people from reading it. Societies for its publication 
and distribution have been repeatedly condemned by 
the Pope. Surely an enemy of the Bible is an enemy 
of all liberty — personal and national. 

And this hostility to the inspiring caus# of all true 
liberty is unmistakably evinced even in the full-orbed 
light of this nineteenth century, and in this Protestant 
country, which owes its greatness to the unfettered 
Word of God. A warfare, bitter, unrelenting, almost 
fiendish, has been waged for years against its reading 
in our common schools. Even in their own schools, 
though catechisms and crucifixes and rosaries are abun- 
dant, the Bible, even their own version, is a rare 
book. 

With separate organizations for almost everything, 
the Komish Church has no society for the distribution 
of God's will to men. In fact, they have never yet 
published, in the vernacular, an authorized edition, 
without note or comment* Here is an extract from the 
version in general use : — " Images, pictures or repre- 
sentations, even in the house of God and in the very 
sanctuary, so far from being forbidden, are expressly 

* St. Liguori says : — " The Scriptures, and books of controversy, 
may not be permitted in the vernacular tongue, as also they cannot 
be read without permission. " Cardinal Bellarmine declares : — " The 
Catholic Church forbids the reading of the Scriptures by all, without 
choice, or the public reading or singing of them in vulgar tongues, as 
it is decreed in the Council of Trent." 



THE PAPACY A FOE TO RELIGIOUS LIBERTY, 267 

authorized by the Word of God." (Comment on Second 
Commandment.) 

And even the burning of Bibles is not yet one of the 
lost arts; and the immutable Church seems loath to 
allow it to become such. In the year 1842 (Oct. 27), 
at Champlain, N. Y., according to a statement prepared 
and published by four respectable citizens appointed 
for that purpose, a pile of Bibles, brought from the 
priest's house, was set on fire, and in open day, and in 
the presence of many spectators, burned to ashes. And 
the last year witnessed in unhappy Popery-cursed 
Spain a similar " act of faith," accompanied by various 
Catholic ceremonies, and a tremendous philippic against 
the execrable heretics. 

Liguori, one of Bome's canonized saints, author of 
the " Glories of Mary," and of a standard text-book on 
Moral Theology, exclaims with holy horror : — " How 
many simple girls, because they have learned to read, 
have lost their souls." The Freemans Journal once 
said : — " The Bible Society is the deepest scheme ever 
laid by Satan in order to delude the human family, 
and bring them down to his eternal possession." Bishop 
Spots wood affirmed : — " I would rather a half of the 
people of this nation should be brought to the stake 
and burned, than one man should read the Bible and 
form his judgments from its contents." 

Catholicism is opposed to freedom of conscience. 
The Protestant Church holds — in fact the true Church 
in all ages has held — that God alone is Lord of the 



268 THE PAPACY A FOE TO RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. 

conscience, that this right He will not share with 
another, and that man should allow no miserable, arro- 
gant human tyrant to usurp the throne of his Maker. 
Romanism, however, resembles all false religions in 
claiming the right to rule over the individual con- 
science ; utterly denying its adherents the privilege of 
having any opinions except according to rules pre- 
scribed by an infallible Church. One of the recent 
Popes declared that " liberty of conscience is an absurd 
and dangerous maxim; or rather the ravings of deli- 
rium." A bishop in the Council of Trent said, with 
the concurrence and approbation of the holy (?) fathers : 
— " Laymen have nothing to do but to hear and sub- 
mit." The New York Tablet recently informed its 
readers : — " There is no difference of opinion on this 
subject (the temporal power of the Pope), for we do not 
allow any difference on such questions. The decrees of 
the CI turch forbid it* Father Farrel, of St. Joseph's 
Church, New York, for the mortal sin of having written 
(Jan. 12, 1871) an exceedingly mild approval of a 
public meeting in favor of Italian Unity, was peremp- 
torily ordered by Archbishop McCloskey — three holy 
fathers, the council summoned to try the case, and 
several politicians demanding the order — to retract his 
liberal ideas, that every people had a right to choose 
its own rulers, or immediately withdraw from the 
Church. So then there is only one mind, only one 
conscience in the Catholic Church. Priests are simply 
mirrors, to reflect the opinions and aims of His Infalli- 



THE PAPACY A FOE TO RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. 269 

bility, Pope Pius IX. What freedom can men retain 
after thus yielding the right of private judgment — 
after surrendering conscience? Yery appropriately 
does one born in Catholicity, educated in her doctrines, 
and still in the enjoyment of her services, ask : — " How 
long is this enlightened spirit of the nineteenth cen- 
tury to continue pandering to such narrow bigotry and 
prejudice as this?" 

Eomanism shows itself an enemy of religious liberty, 
by opposing the freedom of the press. Protestantism 
courts the light, loves the truth, and invites discussion, 
believing that error is inherently weak, and cannot 
present arguments which will sway the enlightened 
conscience of the educated masses. It is willing that 
the two should enter the lists, well assured that the 
former will gain an easy victory. Of the freedom of 
the press, it is, therefore, the stanch defandant ; it has 
nothing to fear from discussion; everything to hope. 
On the other hand, of this liberty the Pope is a deadly 
foe. He denominates it " that fatal licence of ivJiich we 
cannot entertain too much horror." "Weak, indeed, must 
be the cause which dares not undertake its own de- 
fence ; corrupt must be the Church that endeavors to 
shut out the light of God ; insecure must be the founda- 
tions of a system of religion which dreads, and, as far 
as lies in its power, prohibits public discussion. And 
assuredly this hatred of a free press is thoroughly an- 
tagonistic to the spirit of the age. 

Nor are Papists less hostile to another support of 



270 THE PAPACY A FOE TO RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. 

religious liberty, the education of the masses. Rome 
detests the very term, popular education. Her maxim 
is, " Ignorance is the mother of devotion and order." 
Accordingly, we nowhere find in Catholic countries 
good public school systems. They are the glory of 
Protestant lands. In this respect compare Spain with 
England; France with Prussia; Lower Canada with 
New England ; Ireland with Scotland. In Protestant 
countries the people are intelligent, thrifty, industrious, 
moral ; in Roman Catholic nations the masses are poor, 
degraded, ignorant, vicious. In Canada East, it is said, 
not more than one in ten can read ; in Italy not one in 
fifty. In Ireland there reigns, even in this day, the 
ignorance, superstition and brutality of the dark ages. 
In Spain, out of a population of less than sixteen mil- 
lions, according to the last census, more than twelve 
millions can neither read nor write. Certainly none 
w T ill deny that such ignorance endangers civil and reli- 
gious liberty. 

In face of these, and countless similar facts which 
might be adduced, how astounding the frequent asser- 
tions of the Papal literature of the present day ! The 
Catholic World, a monthly magazine published in New 
York, actually has the hardihood to affirm* that 
Catholicism has ever shown itself the guardian of civil- 
ization, the friend of liberty, the advocate of Republican 
forms of government ; that it fosters science, encourages 
education, and places no shackles on reason. And the 

* June, 1870. 



TEE PAPACY A FOE TO RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. 271 

same periodical denounces, in unmeasured terms, the 
civilization of the present day, defends the Crusades, 
advocates the dogma of Infallibility, asserts and re- 
asserts the immutability of the Church, fights our 
common school system, and is ready to deluge 
Italy in blood to secure the restoration of the Pope 
to temporal power.* Does warmth of devotion to 
the cause of Kepublicanism such as this enkindle a 
flame on liberty's altar? Do we broil our beefsteak 
by the glowing fires of an arctic iceberg? Shall we 
intrust the cause we love to the hands of its 
enemies ? 

Protestantism, now as ever, boldly presents itself to 
the world, challenging the fullest investigation; de- 
manding an unfettered press, an open Bible, a free 
platform, an untrammelled conscience, liberal education, 
full discussion and fair play, having faith to believe that 
truth will ultimately triumph. Romanism fetters the 
limbs of freedom, represses independence of thought, 
trammels conscience, cuts the nerve of individual 
energy, and saps the foundations of all true liberty. 
Father Farrel presumes to breathe the hope that Italy 
may be free, and is summarily decapitated. A German 
writes " Janus," an unanswerable refutation of Papal 
infallibility ; his work is placed in the list of condemned 
books, and Papists forbidden to read it. Hyacinthe 
conscientiously endeavors to bring the Church of his 

* See especially June and August, 1870. 



272 THE PAPACY A FOE TO RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. 

love into harmony with the spirit of the age, to extract 
the molar teeth from the growling despot, and is 
excommunicated. E. Ffoulkes candidly writes his 
impressions of Romanism ; he is excommunicated and 
his book condemned. Thus Popery treats her own 
sons. 

Without religious liberty, to which Romanism has 
ever shown herself an enemy, civil liberty is manifestly 
impossible. To establish the most perfect system of 
Republicanism in Spain, or Ireland, would be to cast 
pearls before swine. Despotism, government by brute 
force, is the only government fitted, or in fact possible, 
to those who, having sold reason and conscience, are 
ignorant, prejudiced, superstitious, passionate, brutal. 
Thus the Roman Catholic Church is at once a school 
and an engine of despotism. So long as it retains sway, 
promulgating its doctrines, civil liberty is a boon beyond 
the reach of its subjects, nay, would in fact be, as it 
once proved in France, and may again soon, their 
greatest curse. What Catholic countries need is educa- 
tion, virtue and individual self-restraint, at once fitting 
for, and bringing after them, true, lasting, heaven-be- 
stowed freedom. 

With an apt quotation from Gattini, the noted Ita- 
lian, we close this chapter : — " Civilization asks what 
share the Papacy has taken in its work. Is it the 
press ? Is it electricity ? Is it steam ? Is it chemical 
analysis ? Is it free trade ? Is it self-government ? Is 
it the principle of nationality? Is it the proclamation 



TEE PAPACY A FOE TO RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. 273 

of the rights of man ? Of the liberty of conscience ? 
Of all this the Papacy is the negation."* 

* Father Hyacinthe, in a letter addressed to Bishops, urging re- 
forms, says: — u The result, if these documents (the Encyclical and 
Syllabus) were treated seriously, would be to establish a radical in- 
compatibility between the duty of a faithful Catholic and the duty 
of an impartial student and free citizen." 

18 



CHAPTER IV, 



POPERY AND MORALITY. 




HE author of the " Invitation Heeded " entitles 
one of his chapters, " The Church the Guardian 
of Morals." Whatever effect his argument may 
have had upon others, there is one whom it has 
signally failed in convincing. With even increased 
boldness, we now affirm that Popery is unfriendly to 
morality. We do not affirm that Romanists are ene- 
mies of private and public morals ; nor deny that many 
are extremely exemplary, patterns of goodness; nor 
even assert that they knowingly advocate a system 
which is far less efficient than Protestantism in wedding 
its adherents to a life of morality. We make the 
assertion, however, without the fear of refutation, that 
Romanism, as a system, has failed in reforming the 
morals of the masses. It has been frequently said in 
certain quarters that Protestantism is a failure, what 
then shall be said of Popery? As a moral educator, 
her failure is deplorable. Compare Mexico and South 
America with the United States; Italy with New 
England ; Spain with Scotland ; the Protestant counties 
of Ireland with those mostly Popish ; Ulster with Tip- 

perary. 

274 



POPERY AND MORALITY. 275 

In Roman Catholic Belgium there are, we are 
officially informed, eighteen murders to a million of the 
population; in France thirty-one; in Bavaria thirty- 
two; In Italy fifty-two; in Protestant England four. 
The illegitimate births in Brussels are thirty-five in the 
hundred ; in Paris thirty-three ; in Vienna fifty-one ; in 
England five. In Chicago, according to the report of 
the Superintendent of Police, the Irish, who are about 
one-tenth of the entire population, supplied, in the year 
1867, one hundred and seventy-four more offenders than 
all the other nationalities together. During the month 
in which the report was rendered (September), one in 
eight of the Catholic voters reported at the police court. 
Are Papists worse in Chicago than in the other cities 
of the Union ? The Irish Republic says, " No." 

The Westminster Gazette, a Roman Catholic journal, 
recently made the following acknowledgment : — " The 
neglected children of London are chiefly our children, 
and the lowest of every class, whether thieves or 
drunkards, are Catholics." 

The Pope's own city, it is well known, has been in 
the past, and is now, extremely immoral. His Holiness, 
Alexander VI., for eleven years the occupant of the 
Papal chair, the anointed head of the so-called true 
Church, the pretended successor of Peter, gave a splen- 
did entertainment to fifty public prostitutes in the halls 
of the Holy Vatican. And in our own day no carica- 
tures are so much enjoyed in Rome as those at the 
expense of the priesthood ; no stories are too astounding 



276 POPERY AND MORALITY. 

to be believed, if against priests and cardinals ; no cry 
is so emphatic and frequent as this : — " Down with the 
priests." When those claiming sanctity, wearing the 
honors of the Church, careful in the observance of her 
forms, and zealous in extending her influence, are, 
many of them, openly or secretly immoral, what is to 
be expected from the lower classes? If, according to 
one of their own historians, Baronius, " He was usually 
called a good Pope, who did not excel in wickedness 
the worst of the human kind ; " if moral character is 
not an essential qualification of a legitimate priest, but 
spiritual blessings of incalculable value may be pro- 
nounced by the tongue that an hour before, in a 
drunken revel, cursed its Maker ; if grace flows through 
an unbroken succession direct from Peter, unimpeded 
in its blessed flow, as it streams from the jewelled 
fingers of a mitered monster of iniquity, then assuredly 
unbridled wickedness is excusable in the laity. Can 
they see any beauty in such holiness that they should 
desire it? To what organized iniquity do these re- 
markable words refer — " Mother of Harlots and 
Abominations of the Earth?" 

That profanity should prevail in Catholic countries 
none need wonder. The Popes have set examples that 
may challenge the blasphemous ingenuity of the most 
hardened reprobate.* Cursing — solemnly and deliber- 

* Take the cursing and excommunication of the Pope's alum- 
maker as a specimen : — " May God the Father curse him ! May God 
the Son curse him ! May the Holy Ghost curse him ! May the Holy 



POPERY AND MORALITY. 277 

ately done, but cursing none the less — seems to be one 
of the functions of their office. The Bull of Excom- 
munication, dated Oct. 12, 1869, pronounces damnation 
upon all apostates and heretics, thus separating not 
only from the Church on earth, but from the Church 
in heaven, eight hundred millions of the human race, 
cutting them off, as Eomanism affirms, from all rational 
hope of salvation. Even this, alas ! does not exhaust 
his power of cursing. He fulminates a particular 
anathema against all who knowingly possess or read 
any book condemned by himself or his predecessors. 

Cross curse him ! May the Holy and Eternal Virgin Mary curse 
him I May St. Michael curse him ! May John the Baptist curse 
him ! May St. Peter, and St. Paul, and St. Andrew, and all the 
Apostles curse him ! May all the martyrs and confessors curse him ! 
May all the saints from the beginning of time to everlasting curse 
him ! May he be cursed in the house, and in the fields ! May he be 
cursed while living, and while dying ! May he be cursed in sitting, 
in standing, in lying, in walking, in working, in eating, in drinking ! 
May he be cursed in all the powers of his body, within and without I 
May he be cursed in the hair of his head, in his temples, his eye- 
brows, his forehead, his cheeks, and his jaw-bones, his nostrils, his 
teeth, his lips, his throat, his shoulders, his arms, his wrists, his 
hands, his breast, his stomach, his reins, . . . his legs, his feet, his 
joints, his nails ! May he be cursed from the crown of his head to 
the sole of his foot ! May heaven and all the powers therein rise 
against him to damn him, unless he repent and make satisfaction ! 
Amen." — Spelman's Glossary, p. 206. If this poor man is not suffering 
in the deepest pit of hell, it's not the Pope's fault. He was well cursed. 
If there is any hope, even the faintest, then the righteous indignation, 
the foaming fulminations of an infallible Pope, are harmless; then we 
more fortunate heretics may safely despise the feeble anathemas pro- 
nounced against us. 



278 POPERY AND MORALITY. 

As the interdicted list contains books in most of the 
cultivated languages, both ancient and modern, and 
upon almost every subject — Science, History, Religion, 
Morals, Metaphysics, and Literature, including most of 
our standard classics — down go the hopes of by far the 
greater number of educated Papists the world over. 
And then too, all who impede the work of the Church, 
directly or indirectly, especially such as subject priests 
to trial before civil courts — which even Catholic nations 
are now doing — are honored with a special malediction, 
sealing the fate of many millions more. That only a 
select few may escape a sound cursing, other classes 
also are pronounced anathema, all members of secret 
societies — Free Masons, Odd Fellows, Orangemen, and 
even his own dear children, Ribbonmen and Fenians. 
Still further to narrow the number of the elect, a curse 
is pronounced upon all who hold converse with excom- 
municated persons, upon all guilty of simony, and upon 
all ecclesiastics presuming to grant absolution to excom- 
municants, except in the article of death. The whole 
immense power of the keys is exerted, it would seem, in 
peopling the regions of the lost. " The Infallible teacher 
of faith and morals" u the only mouth-piece of divine 
mercy" damns more than four-fifths of the human family. 
Nor is the character of Rome's stanch adherents, the 
Jesuits, any less worthy of reprehension. Having 
taken one of the most solemn oaths ever administered 
of unflinching fidelity to the interests of " Mother 
Church," they are thenceforth dead to every sentiment 



POPERY AND MORALITY. 279 

of virtue, to every motive of honor, to every feeling of 
humanity, unless these are means for the accomplish- 
ment of their deep-seated schemes of Popish aggrandize- 
ment. They have no love of morality, no fear of God 
before their eyes, no chord of sympathy with suffering 
humanity ; they are simply, and almost solely, unprin- 
cipled, unreasoning, but shrewd, energetic, untiring 
devotion to Rome. Inheriting from their illiterate 
founder, Ignatius Loyola, a fanaticism the blindest con- 
ceivable — and for that very reason the most intense 
possible — they have been during all the years of their 
existence one of the greatest curses Europe has been 
called upon to endure.* 

Some, perhaps, may be inclined to account for the 
increased prevalence of crime in Roman Catholic coun- 
tries, by assigning other causes than the influence of 
the Romish Church. But certainly human nature is 
the same in all lands ; and while external influences 
and modifying circumstances may indeed in some 

* The Parliament of France, in ordering their expulsion from the 
Empire (1762), set forth their moral character as follows: — "The 
consequences of their doctrines destroy the law of nature ; break all 
bonds of civil society ; authorize lying, theft, perjury, the utmost un- 
cleanness, murder and all sins ! Their doctrines root out all senti- 
ments of humanity ; excite rebellion ; root out all religion ; and sub- 
stitute all sorts of superstition, blasphemy, irreligion and idolatry." 

Lord Macaulay says : — " It was alleged, and not without founda- 
tion, that the ardent public spirit which made the Jesuit regardless 
of his ease, of his liberty, and of his life, made him also regardless of 
truth and of mercy ; that no means which could promote the interests 
of his religion seemed to him unlawful, and that by these interests he 



280 POPERY AND MORALITY. 

measure affect the state of morals, it is inconceivable 
that these should universally operate, in all climates 
and in all ages, to the evident greater deterioration of 
lands under the rule of the Pope. The conclusion is 
irresistible, that these gross immoralities are the result, 
the natural fruit of Rome's teaching. The whole sys- 
tem tends to produce exactly this state of things. 
When men believe that the favor of heaven can be 
purchased for a few paltry dimes, why should they 
endeavor to secure it by a life of self-denying virtue ? 
Why follow the despised, humble and meanly-attired 
Jesus, in the narrow way, with few companions, when 
taught from early infancy to believe that the gay, the 
worldly, and even the immoral, being within the 
Church, are sure of entering the bliss of heaven ? With 
no just sense of the heinousness of sin as a violation of 
divine law ; with no fear of the righteous indignation 
of Almighty God, in fact, with conscience thoroughly 
debauched by the teachings of the priest, what shall 

too often meant the interests of his society. It was alleged that, in 
the most atrocious plots recorded in history, his agency could be 
distinctly traced ; that, constant only in attachment to the fraternity 
to which he belonged, he was in some countries the most dangerous 
enemy of freedom, and in others the most dangerous enemy of order. 
. . . Instead of toiling to elevate human nature to the noble standard 
fixed by Divine precept and example, he had lowered the standard till 
it was beneath the average level of human nature. ... In truth, if 
society continued to hold together, if life and property enjoyed any 
security, it was because common sense and common humanity restrained 
men from doing what the Society of Jesus assured them they might with a 
safe conscience cZo." — Vol. i., chap. 6. 



^POPERY AND MORALITY. 281 

restrain them from the commission of any crimes they 
may desire to commit ? Could any system be devised 
better fitted to spread vice, disorder and crimes - to dis- 
solve the bonds of society ? If men were left without 
any religion, it is believed that even the natural con- 
science, unenlightened by divine revelation, would 
prompt to a purer code of morals than that of 
Rome. 

Another powerful agent in producing these abound- 
ing immoralities, there can be no doubt, is the con- 
fessional. The influence of this can be only bad, both 
on the minds of those who recount all their sins to the 
confessor, and on the mind of the priest. The heart 
of Father Confessor is a receptacle for all the villanies 
and immoralities of an entire congregation. If these 
do not corrupt even one who holds his office under the 
authority of St. Peter, he must be more than human. 
But, alas ! we have innumerable evidences all around 
us that priests are men of like passions with others. 
Defiled in mind by becoming familiar with forms of sin, 
the listener becomes the tempted ; the tempted becomes 
the tempter. 

And the maxims laid down for the direction of con- 
fessors in the discharge of their duties with the faithful 
are worthy a passing notice. "After a son has robbed 
his father, as a compensation, the confessor need not 
enforce restitution, if he has taken no more than the 
just recompense of his labor." " Servants may steal 
from their masters as much as they judge their labor 



282 POPERY AND MORALITY. 

is worth more than the wages they receive." * There 
would seem to be some virtue in doing the deed secretly. -\ 
Are we to infer that Papists, like the ancient Spartans, 
deem theft honorable, if so adroitly done as to escape 
detection ? And how convenient the standard by 
which to determine how much may be taken without 
sin — as much as the Catholic judges his or her services 
worth more than the wages received. Some servants, 
under such instruction, learn to set a very high esti- 
mate on their labors. Not only may servants steal 
from their employers, but wives may from their hus- 
bands. "A woman may take the property of her 
husband to supply her spiritual wants, and to act as 
other women act." 

According to the moral theology of Liguori, "To 
strike a clergyman is sacrilege ; " but, " It is lawful for 
a person to sell poison to one who, he believes, will use 
it for bad purposes, provided the seller cannot refrain 
from selling it without losing his customer." It is like- 
wise lawful to keep a concubine, to shelter prostitutes, 
to rent them a house, and to carry messages between 
them and their gallants. " In case of doubt whether a 
thing which is commanded be against the command- 

* See Molina, vol. ii. p. 1150. 

f The Catechism approved by French Bishops— their catechisms, 
like their prayer-books, are unnumbered— asks, " Is one always 
guilty of robbery when he takes the property of another ? No. It 
might happen that he whose goods he takes has no right to object. 
For instance, when he takes in secret of his neighbor by way of com- 
pensation." 



POPERY AND MORALITY. 283 

merit of God, the subject is bound to obey the command 
of his superior." The same high authority assures us 
that gambling, betting, disobedience of parents, glut- 
tony, vain-glory, hypocrisy, opening another's letters, 
babbling, scurrility, and the ordination of drunkards 
and debauchees to the priesthood, are lawful under 
certain circumstances. Condemning the Wycliffites for 
opposing simony, he makes an excuse for its prevalence 
in the Romish Church. "A voluntary confession to a 
priest," he affirms, " is a sign of contrition." 

For the practical carrying out of their cherished 
principle, " The end justifies the means," the injured 
Catholic may read, " If a calumniator will not cease to 
publish calumnies against you, you may fitly kill him, 
not publicly, but secretly, to avoid scandal." Again : — 
" It is lawful to kill an accuser, wmose testimony may 
jeopard your life and honor." And to make this code 
of infamous morals as convenient as possible, it is fur- 
ther affirmed : — " In all the above cases, when a man 
has a right to kill any person, another may do it for 
him, if affection move the murderer." 

We know it may indeed be said, these precepts are 
not widely known, nor generally practised; they are 
only found in Rome's books ; they are merely a portion 
of the legacy of the dark ages, and to hold Rome to 
account for them is, in every sense, and to the highest 
degree, unfair. No, not unfair; for immutability 
changes not, and a Church which assumes the right to 
place its ban on every immoral issue from the press, to 



284 POPERY AND MORALITY. 

tell the world what to believe, what to read, and now 
to act, and has gone to the most distant publishing 
houses of the civilized world to drag thence for con- 
demnation the principles of Protestantism, might surely 
take the trouble to expunge these and similar teachings 
from books written by her own sons, and once sanc- 
tioned. 

The practice of the Popes in dispensing with oaths, 
obligations and contracts, and absolving subjects from 
allegiance to their lawful sovereigns ill cases where 
kings rebel against the authority of Rome, has had no 
little influence in producing immoralities. It is a prin- 
ciple with Rome that "no faith is to be kept with 
heretics." * 

And this dogma of Roman Infallibility has on several 
occasions been practically interpreted. John Huss was 
conducted to the Council of Constance, under the 
solemn pledge of protection from the Emperor. The 
Council, however, condemned the reformer as a heretic, 

* Gregory IX. decreed : — " Be it known to all who are under the 
dominion of heretics, that they are set free from every tie of fealty 
and duty to them ; all oaths and solemn agreement to the contrary 
notwithstanding." Pope Innocent VIIL, in his bull against the 
Waldenses, gave his nuncio full authority "to absolve all who are 
bound by contract to assign and pay anything to them." Gregory 
VII., in a solemn council held at Rome, enacted :— " We, following 
the statutes of our predecessors, do, by our Apostolic authority, 
absolve all those from their oath of fidelity who are bound to excom- 
municate persons, either by duty or oath, and we loose them from 
every tie of obedience." Martin V. says : — " Be assured thou sinnest 
mortally, if thou keep thy faith with heretics." 



POPERY AND MORALITY. 285 

and ordered hixn to be burned at the stake. In vain 
the Emperor interposed, pleading his pledged word of 
honor. It was solemnly decreed : — " The person who 
has given the safe conduct to come thither shall not, 
in this case, be obliged to keep his promise, by what- 
ever tie he may have been engaged ; " and poor Huss 
perished in the flames ! Did ever ingenuity in devising 
rules of casuistry excel this? It is only equalled by 
the treachery of Judas. And even he, without at- 
tempting a defence of faithlessness, exclaimed, in the 
bitterness of remorse, " I have sinned." But Eome, to 
this day, has never expressed the slightest regret in 
having — not merely on this occasion, but on hundreds 
of others — deliberately broken faith, and consigned to 
the rack, the dungeon, or the flames those whose only 
crime was, that they loved Christ, the Bible, and a 
pure Christianity more than the Scarlet Mother on the 
seven hills of Rome. 

In remembrance of such deeds, it is with a sense of 
holy satisfaction that the follower of Jesus reads, 
" Her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath 
remembered her iniquities." And the prayer of the 
devout soul is, " Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly ; " 
vindicate truth and justice; let the angel's voice be 
heard above the waves of earth's turmoil, saying, " Is 
fallen, is fallen, Babylon the great." 

Did space permit we might easily prove that un- 
blushing atheism is a natural fruit of Popery. In every 
Catholic country of the present day the more intelligent 



2S6 POPERY AND MORALITY. 

classes are either infidel or atheistic. Without pausing 
to ascertain whether Popery is condemned or taught in 
Scripture, but presuming it is all it claims to be, the 
only form of religion having the sanction of the Bible, 
they deliberately reject God's "Word as a guide to - 
morality, holiness and happiness. To receive as a 
boon from our Father in heaven a book which, it is be- 
lieved, wrongly indeed, yet firmly believed, sanctions 
such enormities, is justly considered a slander on the 
Creator. Accordingly, they look upon it as a cunningly 
devised fable, admirably adapted to bind the fetters of 
despotism on an ignorant people, precisely fitted to up- 
hold and enrich an arrogant priesthood, but no guide to 
the sin-burdened soul on the way to eternal favor with 
God. Some, however, of the educated in Romish coun- 
tries, perhaps the greater number, do not pause short 
of atheism. In rejecting a system of religion which 
cannot command even common respect, they, alas ! re- 
ject also the triune God, who, although worthy the 
devout homage of every heart, is so dishonored by 
those who profess to serve him, as to be despised by 
those outside the Church claiming to be his. By the 
excesses of Popery they are drawn away from the Bible 
and God, and driven into atheism. Consciously or un- 
consciously they have reasoned, if this be the true 
religion of the true God (and they who claim talent, 
knowledge and piety so affirm), then we deliberately 
prefer to believe there is no God. The atheism, 
which, in the bloody excesses of the French Revolu- 



POPERY AND MORALITY. 287 

tion, disgraced humanity, was the legitimate offspring 
of Romanism. 

With the testimony of Coleridge as to the ruinous 
moral effects of Popery, we close : — " When I contem- 
plate the whole system of Romanism as it affects the 
great principles of morality, the terra firma, as it were, 
of our humanity; then trace its operations on the 
sources and conditions of human strength and well 
being ; and lastly, consider its woeful influence on the 
innocence and sanctity of the female mind and imagi- 
nation ; on the faith and happiness, the gentle fragrancy 
and unnoticed ever-present verdure of domestic life, I 
can with difficulty avoid applying to it the Rabbi's 
fable of the fratricide, Cain — that the firm earth trem- 
bled wherever he trod, and the grass turned black 
beneath his feet.' 1 




CHAPTER V. 

POPERY UNCHANGED. 

vJ)°||fN some respects Popery has indeed changed, not- 
withstanding her boasted claim of immutability. 
Pius IX., the world's " infallible teacher in faith 
and morals," though the successor of Gregory VII., 
would find exceeding great difficulty in forcing a modern 
Henry IV. to stand in the court of his palace, hungry 
and shoeless, humbly pleading during three successive 
days from morning till night — the Holy Father mean- 
while enjoying the society of an intelligent, beautiful, 
honored countess, his illegitimately endeared friend — 
for the superlative privilege of kissing the toe of him, 
" appointed of heaven to pull down the pride of kings." 
Popery, so far as regards the respect it is able to com- 
mand, has greatly changed since the twelfth century, 
when kings considered themselves honored in being 
permitted to lead by the bridle rein the sacred horse, or 
even the holy mule, that bore Christ's Vicar. Now his 
Holiness begs the favors he no longer can command, 
soliciting Peters pence from those despising his anathe- 
mas ; impotently imploring the support of bishops who 
scorn his holy indignation. Urban VIII. condemned as 
" perverse in the highest degree " the doctrine of the 

288 



POPERY UNCHANGED. 289 

earth's revolution. His successors, with as much grace 
as possible, have silently yielded to the inevitable. 
Now this little orb is allowed to revolve, no one, not 
even an infallible Pope, objecting. Formerly, and even 
now in countries purely popish, agencies for disseminat- 
ing religious literature must incur anathema ; now, as 
the press is a powerful agent in moulding public senti- 
ment, the Catholic Publication Society of New York, 
organized with the sanction of the Pope for the express 
purpose of combating Protestantism with its own 
weapons, is issuing tracts and pamphlets which in 
Italy would even now, as in former times, be considered 
unfriendly to the sacred prerogatives of God's vicegerent 
on earth. 

"Whilst in methods of exhibiting her temper, Rome 
has changed somewhat — endeavoring to put old wine 
into new bottles — it is undeniably true that in reality 
she is the same, unprincipled monster ; in dogma un- 
altered, in spirit unbroken, unsubdued, untameable. 
" Those," says Hallam, " who know what Rome has 
once been, are best able to appreciate what she is." " It 
is most true," says Charles Butler, " that Roman Catho- 
lics believe the doctrines of their Church unchangeable; 
it is a tenet of their creed that what their faith ever 
has been, such it was from the beginning, such it is now, 
and such it ever will be." "What else could be expected 
from a Church claiming infallibility ? To alter its 
dogmas, or to condemn the cruel practices of the past, 
would be to overturn the foundation on which it rests. 
19 



290 POPER Y UNCHANGED. 

Hence we search in vain in the Encyclical Letters of the 
present for the slightest intimation that Popery has 
changed its character or purposes. Has one single 
decree been revoked ? one solitary regret expressed for 
the atrocities which have made her name a synonym 
for cruelty ? Does any doctrine once held by the Church 
now lack strenuous defenders ? All the superstitious 
and idolatrous practices of the past find advocates in 
the present, — the adoration of the host, the invocation of 
saints, the granting of indulgences, the worship of the 
Virgin, the veneration of relics, absolution by the priest, 
the cursing of " all heretics, be they kings or subjects," 
and detestation of " Protestantism, that damnable heresy 
of long standing." 

Patient waiting for a return of strength, or of a favor- 
able opportunity, is not change of nature. The sleeping 
lion, with wounded paws and broken teeth, is a lion 
still. In most countries Eomanism does indeed lack 
the power to execute its fiendish designs : and even in 
those nations almost exclusively Eoman Catholic, it 
would be the acme of human folly to insult the untram- 
melled conscience of Christendom; but its principles, 
doctrines and spirit are in no respect changed for the 
better. It is simply restrained by a public sentiment 
which it despises and does all in its power to break 
down, which, however, it dares not so far disregard as to 
re-enact the untold horrors of the Inquisition. This 
would be its certain destruction. And yet, even in re- 
publican America, it is in spirit the same despotism it 



POPERY UNCHANGED, 291 

was in Europe. Of individual liberty, of education, of 
the general diffusion of gospel truth, and of government 
by the people, it is the same uncompromising foe it has 
always been. 

Is the Romish Church less eager for power now than 
during her past history ? Certainly not. Never were 
greater exertions made to retain the influence it has, 
and to recover what it has lost. The Jesuit order, which 
has been revived and inspired with new energy, is strain- 
ing every nerve to enlarge its numbers and secure a 
controlling influence in legislation, especially in these 
United States, with the hope of ultimately bringing 
them under Papal domination. True to their principles 
— deceitful always — they laud the liberty of our country 
while forging the weapons for its destruction. Warmed 
into life by our self-denying kindness, like the fabled 
serpent, they are distilling deadly poison into the bosom 
to which they owe existence itself. 

Is Rome less avaricious now than in the ages past? No. 
Her system which, it would seem, must have been de- 
vised for the express purpose of procuring money — each 
of her seven sacraments is a market, every spiritual 
blessing has a price — is as admirably adapted to this 
end, and as efficiently operated now. as heretofore. And 
so perfect is the machinery of this iniquitous system of 
collecting revenues, and so successfully is it driven, that 
Catholicism has impoverished every country in which it 
has held sway. Spain pays annually out of her penury 
fifty millions to the Romish Church. Ireland's poverty 



292 FOPER Y UNCHANGED. 

is traceable directly to Popery. Even from our own land 
large sums are annually exported to the treasury of the 
Pope, — last } 7 ear three millions, this year all that can 
possibly be raised for " Peter in prison." 

Is Romanism less intolerant than formerly ? The 
hope is vain. Her ever memorable words are : " The 
good must tolerate the evil, when it is so strong that it 
cannot be redressed without danger and disturbance to 
the whole Church, .... otherwise, where ill men, be 
they heretics or other malefactors, may be punished 
without disturbance and hazard of the good, they may 
and ought, by public authority, either spiritual or tem- 
poral, to be chastised or executed." * Is this less than 
an open declaration of determination to persecute even 
unto death so soon as they can obtain the power ? We 
exist merely by tolerance, being mercifully allowed to 
retain our own cherished doctrines and worship God in 
the way that to us seems according to Scripture, simply 
because Rome has granted us present indulgence. But 
the right to chastise us with rods of iron, Holy Mother 
has not yielded. Her loyal sons defend every act of 
persecution, even all her past enormities. The Crusades 
are lauded. Even the Inquisition is unblushingly de- 
fended and even applauded. It is declared : " It saved 
society from a danger only second to that from which 
it was preserved by the Crusaders." Rome is represented 
as the one " place on earth where error has never been 
permitted to have a foothold." Protestantism is de- 
* Ehemish Testament, Matt. xiii. 6. 



POPERY UNCHANGED. 293 

clared to be " a gigantic rebellion against the Church of 
God." Accordingly, Eome establishes " the Congregation 
of the Inquisition " to " protect the souls of her children 
from the fatal pestilence of heresy and umbelief." " Pro- 
testantism is everywhere the intruder — the innovator." 
By the right of prior occupation, " in a special manner 
she claims this land." And whilst they have the right 
to persecute and silence us, we have scarcely the right 
to protest, for " Protestantism tolerating every error can 
make no exception against the truth." Sublime arro- 
gance ! 

With a candor that is truly refreshing, considering 
whence it proceeds, the Jesuits, Home's sworn adherents 
— who by intrigue and perjury and diabolical malignity 
have sown discord everywhere, and been thirty nine 
times expelled from the different countries of Europe — 
whilst claiming full liberty to extend the principles of 
their Church unmolested and even unchallenged, yet 
unequivocally deny that they have abandoned the 
right to persecute. Did ever audacity equal this ? It 
amounts to saying .that constitutional liberty must 
warm them into vigor, that they may have the power 
to inflict upon it a deadly wound. The Shepherd of the 
Valley, a Catholic paper published in St. Louis, with 
the approbation of the archbishop, says : 

" The Catholic who says that the Church is not intolerant, belies 
the sacred spouse of Christ. The Christian who professes to be 
tolerant himself, is dishonest, ill-instructed, or both ! " 

" We say that the temporal punishment of heresy is a mere ques- 



294 POPERY UNCHANGED. 

Hon of expediency. Where we abstain from persecuting them (the 
Protestants), they are well aware that it is merely because we cannot 
do so ; or think that by doing so we should injure the cause that we 

wish to serve If the Catholics ever gain — which they surely 

will do — an immense numerical majority, religious freedom in this 
country is at an end. So say our enemies, so we believe." 

"Heresy and unbelief are crimes, that's the whole of the matter; 
and where the Catholic religion is an essential part of the laws of 
the land, they are punished as other crimes." * 

The Freeman's Journal a few years since treated its 
readers to the following : — 

" A Catholic temporal Government would be guided in its treat- 
ment of Protestants and other recusants, solely by the rules of expe- 
diency Religious liberty, in the sense of liberty possessed by 

every one to choose his own religion, is one of the most wicked de- 
lusions ever foisted upon this age by the father of all deceit. The 
very word liberty, except in the sense of permission to do certain 
definite acts, ought to be banished from the domain of religion." 

" None but an atheist can uphold the principles of religious liberty. 
Short of atheism, the theory of religious liberty is the most palpable 
of untruths. Shall I therefore fall in with this abominable delusion 
and foster the notion of my fellow countrymen, that they have a 
right to deny the truth of God, in the hope that I may throw dust 
in their eyes, and get them to tolerate my creed as one of the many 
forms of theological opinion prevalent in these latter days ? " 

" Shall I hold out hopes to him that I will not meddle with his 
creed, if he will not meddle with mine? Shall I lead him to think 
that religion is a matter of private opinion, and tempt him to forget 
that he has no more right to his religious views than he has to my 
purse, or my house, or my life-blood f No I Catholicism is the most 
intolerant of creeds. It is intolerance itself — for it is truth itself. 



Editorial, April 10, 1852. 



POPERY UNCHANGED. 295 

"We might as rationally maintain that a sane man has a right to 
believe that two and two do not make four, as this theory of religi- 
ous liberty. Its impiety is only equalled by its absurdity." 

A Papal bull annually " excommunicates and curses 
— on the part of God Almighty, the Father, Son and 
Holy Ghost — all heretics, under whatever name they 
may be classed." To such anathemas we may reply in 
the language of David to Shimei, " It may be the Lord 
will look on our affliction, and requite us good for their 
cursing." 

The text-books now studied in their theological sem- 
inaries are well calculated to keep alive the spirit of 
persecution. Dr. Den, in his " System of Theology," a 
standard with Papists, affirms : " Protestants are by bap- 
tism and by blood under the power of the Romish 
Church. So far from granting toleration to Protestants, 
it is the duty of the Roman Catholic Church to exter- 
minate their religion." Again, " It is the duty of the 
Eoman Catholic Church to compel Protestants to submit 
to her faith." The Rhemish Testament, in its commen- 
tary on Matthew xviii. 17, declares: "Heretics there- 
fore, because they will not hear the Church, be no better, 
nor no otherwise to be esteemed of Catholics, than 
heathen men and publicans were esteemed among the 
Jews." Again, 2 Cor. vi. 14 : " Generally here is for- 
bidden conversation and dealing with all heretics, but 
especially in prayers and meetings at their schismatical 
service." Once again : " Protestants ought by public 
authority, either spiritual or temporal, to be chastised 



296 POPERY UNCHANGED. 

or executed." In exposition of these words, " drunken 
with the blood of the saints," these Rhemish annotates 
say : " The Protestants foolishly expound it of Rome, 
for that there they put heretics to death, and allow of 
their punishment in other countries ; but their blood is 
not called the blood of saints, no more than the blood 
of thieves, man-killers, and other malefactors, for the 
shedding of which by order of justice no commonwealth 
shall answer." Liguori, in his " Moral Theology," a work 
very highly prized in their theological seminaries, says : 
"As the Church has the right of compelling parents to 
hold to the faith, so she has the power of taking their 
children from them." Canon XII. of the recent (Ecu- 
menical Council affirms : — " If any think that Christ, 
our Lord and King, has only given to his Church a 
power to guide, by advice and permission, but not ordain 
by laws, to compel and force by anterior judgments, and 
salutary inflictions, those who thus separate themselves, 
let them be anathema." Surely, in language at least, 
Rome is no less intolerant than in the centuries past. 
And doctrines such as these are taught to youth in this 
land of Protestant liberty ! 

And Rome's actions, as well as her teachings, unmis- 
takably evince the same unchanged spirit. Jewish 
parents in Rome employ a Catholic nurse. Their infant 
son is clandestinely baptized by a Popish priest. Hence- 
forth it is the child of the Church. Stolen from the 
home of its parents — who in vain demand the God-given 
right to their child — immured in a monastery, carefully 



POPERY UNCHANGED. 297 

instructed in the doctrines of Popery, the Jewish dog, 
transmuted into a priest, Mortara, at manhood enters 
the world thanking God that His true church is a baby- 
stealer. Raffaele Ciocci, honorary librarian of a Papal 
college in Rome, is entrapped by Jesuits into a monas- 
tery. Infallibility, carefully instructing him in the 
mysteries of Romanism, designs him for a missionary to 
distant lands steeped in the ignorance of Protestantism. 
Becoming, through the instrumentality of God's blessed 
word, a determined enemy of the Papacy, death is 
decreed against him. With Jesuitical hypocrisy, under 
the cloak of friendship, a poisoned beverage is handed 
him. Saved by a timely antidote, he seeks release from 
the iron grasp of his inhuman persecutors by appealing 
to the Pope. This only rendering his situation doubly 
more intolerable, he finally consents to sign a recantation 
in the hope of effecting an escape. Landing, in the year 
1842, on the shores of free England, he is watched and 
dogged by Franciscans and Jesuits, and every available 
means employed to entangle him again in the cruel 
snares of Romanism. In his revelations of the Man of 
Sin, Ciocci has conclusively proved that Popery in this 
nineteenth century is the same uncompromising foe of 
the Gospel, the same bitter persecutor, unchanged and 
unchangeable. 

We must content ourselves with a mere reference to 
most of the recent cases of Popish intolerance. Protest- 
ants, and especially American Protestants, ought not to 
forget the cruel persecutions of the unhappy inhabitants 



298 POPERY UNCHANGED. 

of Lower Valais, Switzerland, where, in 1843, the Jesuits 
after innumerable iniquitous proceedings, signalized 
their triumph by the passage of a law prohibiting all 
Protestant worship, public and social ; forbidding God's 
people to meet for the reading of his Word even in their 
own houses. And in what language shall we charac- 
terize the banishment, in 1837, of 400 Protestants from 
one of the States of Austria on the simple charge of re- 
fusing Papal supremacy? — or the imprisonment, in 1843, 
of Dr. Kally, a Scottish physician, on the island of 
Madeira ? — or the sentence of death pronounced against 
one of his converts, Maria Joaquina, for " maintaining 
that veneration should not be given to images, denying 
the real presence of Christ in the sacred host, and blas- 
pheming the Most Holy Virgin, Mother of God ? " And 
assuredly every lover of liberty will bear in sad remem- 
brance the history of the lengthy imprisonment, cruelty 
and protracted sufferings of the Madiai family; the 
studied persecution, arrest, impoverishment, imprison- 
ment, and sufferings of Matamoros in a loathsome cell 
— where in sickness he was refused a physician and 
even medicine ; his condemnation to the galleys for nine 
years on the testimony of suborned witnesses ; his ban- 
ishment from Spain, to which his throbbing heart and 
enfeebled voice would fain have proclaimed, " Salvation 
Is of the Lord," and his triumphant death in Switzerland, 
whither he had gone in the faint hope of sending some 
message of life to his endeared countrymen enslaved by 
the superstitions of Rome. Even our own land within 



POPERY UNCHANGED. 299 

a few years, for aught we know, may have given a mar- 
tyr to the truth. Bishop Reese of Michigan, charged 
with ecclesiastical error, entered Eome in response to 
the citation of the Pope. So far as the world knows, he 
entered eternity the day he stepped within the magic 
circle of the heartless Inquisition. 

Until the present year — and for the change no 
thanks to Popery — Protestant worship was prohibited 
in Eome. Did ever intolerance equal this? While 
allowed in England and the United States to hold their 
services, build churches, found monasteries, establish 
theological seminaries, collect enormous sums of money 
for transmission to the Pope, and foment insurrection 
and rebellion against the Governments whose protec- 
tion they claim, they will not permit Protestant wor- 
ship even in a private house where they have the 
power to prevent it. The foreign resident who dares 
to join with his countrymen in worshipping God accord- 
ing to the forms of worship to which he has been 
attached from youth, places himself " in the power of 
the Inquisition, both for arrest and imprisonment," and 
is earnestly advised, unless he courts exile or a dungeon, 
" never again to repeat these illegal acts." * 

Another fact evincing the present spirit of Popery 
claims attention. A full regiment of Canadians, a few 
years since, proffered their services to aid in upholding 
the temporal power of the Pope. The spirit of Peter 

* See Letter from Joseph Severn, British Consul at Eome, to Kev. 
James Lewis, dated Dec. 29, 1866. 



300 POPERY UNCHANGED. 

the Hermit still lives. From every Catholic pulpit in 
Canada appeals were made for aid for Pius IX. in his 
embarrassments. With every Catholic newspaper office 
a recruiting station, and with a central committee to 
secure unity of action, volunteers offered themselves in 
greater numbers than were needed. On the day of 
their departure an address was delivered by Archbishop 
McCloskey : — " You are going to stand with others 
like you, as a rampart of defence and a tower of 
strength around the presence of your Holy Father, to 
protect his safety and defend his rights." Defend his 
rights ; his right to steal the children of heretics, to 
imprison Protestants, to prevent all forms of worship 
except Popish, to fetter freedom, to curse the institu- 
tions of modern liberty, to trample on the dearest 
hopes of the Italian people, and keep them, though 
longing for escape, in the grossest ignorance, under the 
severest despotism, in the most abject poverty ! 
The Archbishop continues : 

" They (Catholics in the United States) are as strongly devoted 
to the sustenance and maintenance of the temporal power of the 
Holy Father as Catholics in any part of the world ; and if it 
should be necessary to prove it by acts they are ready to do so. . . 
If that policy (rion-interference) should ever change to a sympa- 
thy with the Italians as against the Holy Father, then Catholics 
must be prepared to show their readiness by acts as well as words, 
to give their lives, if necessary, for their Holy Father." 

This first crusade failed. And now, forsooth, the 
tocsin is sounding a grander, a world-wide crusade. 
From all the nations that on earth do dwell, the faith- 




BLESSING THE PAPAL ZOUAVES. 



POPERY UNCHANGED. 301 

ful, for multitude like the swarms of flies in Egypt of 
old, are to meet at some designated spot, proceed to 
Italy, wipe out the rebellious sons of Holy Mother, and 
restore Pius IX. to the throne from which he has been 
ejected by the almost unanimous voice of his own peo- 
ple. Festinate. " Whom the gods design to destroy, 
they first make mad." In this holy work the Catho- 
lics of these United States — those ardent friends of 
popular Government, who so loudly proclaim that every 
nation, even every State has the right to the choice of 
its own government — are expected, and are preparing, 
by firing their enthusiasm by volumes of wordy pro- 
tests — they have all turned Protestants at last — to take 
a prominent part, the highest seat in the synagogue 
of war. 

We have authority stamped with the signet of in- 
fallibility for asserting that the first allegiance of the 
Catholic of the United States is due not to our Govern- 
ment, but to the Pope. We are explicitly told that 
we are protecting an organization which holds itself 
ready at any time to obey the commands of a foreign 
despot.* 

* The Tablet, in a recent issue, asks : — "Is the American idea 
higher than this Church idea ? No Catholic can pretend it ; for to 
him the Church idea is divine, and nothing is, or can be, higher than 
God, who is Supreme Creator, proprietor and Lord of all things, visi- 
ble and invisible. If, then, between the Church or Catholic idea, 
and the American idea, there should happen to be a collision, which 
should give way, the lower or higher ? The Catholic idea being 
supreme, must be the law, the universal standard of right and wrong, 



302 POPERY UNCHANGED. 

Certainly, on the question 01 intolerance and detesta- 
tion of civil and religious liberty, none can charge 
Home with vacillation. If language and actions ex- 
press the determination of the will, and the desire of 
the heart, we may certainly be excused for believing 
the assertion of our Catholic friends : — "If the Catho- 
lics EVER GAIN AN IMMENSE NUMERICAL MAJORITY, RELI- 
GIOUS FREEDOM IN THIS COUNTRY IS AT AN END." 

Since Popery is an outgrowth of the depraved heart, 
may we not expect that it will remain essentially un- 
changed, so long as human nature remains unaltered? 
Are we not taught in Nebuchadnezzar's dream, and 
Daniel's vision, and Paul's prophecy, that this giant 
evil shall afflict the world until the dawn of the 
millennium ? * 

By gradually undermining the foundations of a sim- 
ple faith in the unadulterated Gospel, Popery estab- 
lished itself as the desperate and malignant foe of all 
that is life-giving in the spiritual religion of Christ, all 

of truth and falsehood, and consequently all ideas, whether Celtic or 
Saxon, English or American, that contradict it, or do not accord 
with it, are to be rejected as false and wrong, as repugnant to the 
supreme law of God, even to God himself, and not to be entertained 
for a moment." 

* " But the judgment shall sit, and they shall take away his 
dominion to consume and to destroy it unto the end." — Dan. vii. 26. 

"And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall 
consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the bright- 
ness of his coming.'' 1 " Unto the end," " shall destroy with the bright- 
ness of his coming." The best Commentators say, till Christ's Second 
Advent.— 2 Thes. ii. 8. 



POPERY UNCHANGED. 303 

that is ennobling in the liberty it inspires. And how 
otherwise than by gradual destruction can the doctrines 
and superstitions of millions of human beings be utterly 
consumed? Their overthrow "in an hour" would not 
produce in the hearts of the enslaved instantaneous 
detestation of these follies and errors. Home's tem- 
poral power is indeed gone, perhaps forever, but her 
spiritual despotism is still complete, and may continue 
nearly or quite the same for centuries. So long as 
there are those who are willing to be victims of spiritual 
thraldom, there will no doubt be those who are ready 
to enslave them. Consume the hated organization to- 
day, and to-morrow another, phoenix-like, will spring 
from its ashes. Love of power, and preference of the 
forms of devotion to the spirit, will no doubt continue — 
calling for the unceasing labors of God's people — till 
the river of time issues into the ocean of eternity. 

We may, therefore, expect in the future what we 
have witnessed in the past — an unceasing struggle. 
Many complications may arise. Often victory may 
seem to perch on the banners of the enemy. Many 
hopes will be crushed, the hearts of God's people " fail- 
ing them for fear, and for looking after those things 
that are coming upon the earth." Since, however, we 
have witnessed in the last three centuries the gradual 
decay of Popery, may we not confidently rejoice in the 
hope that He who delights to write on the page of 
history the evidence of his far-reaching designs will, in 
his own time, strike the final blow, causing this 



304 POPERY UNCHANGED. 

gigantic system of falsehood to dissolve like mist before 

the rising sun ? Ours is the task of hoping, laboring, 

praying, till even in Rome spiritual liberty shall dawn 

on civil, 

"Like another morning risen on mid-noon." 

" How long, O Xord our God, 
Holy, and true and good, 
Wilt Thou not judge Thy suffering Church, 
Her sighs, and tears, and blood ? " 



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